Atlantic Ocean, reaching in the NE tradewinds

We just changed course, from due south, to a more westerly course towards St Martin. Our current position is 22N, 61W, or 257nm from St Martin, and 1300nm from Ambrose Light, outside New York harbor. We picked up the trades at around 24N, and we're now in 25 knt northeasterlies under a beautiful, warm sky with Simpson's like clouds. The boat is reaching nicely, but for the last couple of days we've had too much wind and it has led to large seas; somewhat uncomfortable sailing. As a result we have had a triple reefed main up for much of the last 24 hours; this morning we shook out the reef and we've accelerated back up to a respectable 7.8 knts. We have the fishing line out: we've decided our lure only causes amusement among the local fish; even the seaweed won't hook on it.

Over the last 24H (which has been too bumpy for me to write anything) we've sailed well below the southern tip of Florida, and we're now close to the latitude of Cuba's southern shore, Guantanamo Bay in fact, albeit it is 800nm to our west. Directly south of us, through the Caribbean, is the Rio Delta in Venezuela (790nm
south).

Greg just cooked up some superb lamb kebabs which we had with harissa and pita. I've been cleaning up the starboard bunk: I made the mistake of trying to air out the cabin by opening a hatch, and took about 150 liters through it for my stupidity. I find it hard to believe that the cabin is now almost to hot! It was only a couple of weeks ago we left NYC ice one the decks.

We've seen one sailboat (at night, and that I tried to hail unsuccessfully) and two freighters, but otherwise, it feels like just us, sliding down the ocean swells, on our own little disk of the ocean, with water from horizon to horizon.

Otherwise we've been listening to weather reports on our single-sideband from Southbound II, a service run by Herb Hilengen out of his house in Canada. Pretty fun listening to him providing wx and routing advice to snowbirds sailing south, and boats coming in from Europe via the Canary Islands. I sense the Caribbean is going to have a lot of sailboats in it this winter!