Sailing to the West

It’s a big Ocean out here. We have seen no land since Monday night, and it’s Sunday morning now. We have about 380 nautical miles left to go. We averaged 200 miles per day the first 3 days, which was excellent progress. The last two days we have had to contend with lighter winds, squalls that sucked the wind away or veered its direction, and lots of sail changes. But, we have had mostly following seas and warmer water – and warmer air temperatures. Which is nice! We haven’t seen another boat or ship, or plane for 4 days. The ocean water is awesomely blue, especially when the skies are clear and sunny. The water looks so blue you would think someone put blue ink in it. It’s one of our favorite parts of sailing across the oceans. Just a few hours ago, we finally made it back to the West! We crossed 0 degrees East to West Longitude. We were last in the West in 2011 in Fiji. It’s a number thing, but still it feels good to be back in the hemisphere where most of our lives have been spent. Thanks to our radio, we have been in contact with other sailboats making the same passage every day. Our friends on s/v Sanctuary and s/v ThreeShips have both made it to landfall at St. Helena during the last 3 days. We would have been there before them except for our long wait for parts and weather in Namibia. We saw lots of sea lions during our slow start out of Luderitz while waiting for wind. At one point we saw a large pod/school/group of sea lions (about 150 of them) all together swimming in a v-shape. We think they were herding a fish and feeding. We saw lots of sea birds the first two days, but very few since. Almost every day, we have found flying fish or squid up on our decks. They often land on top of the deck by mistake at night. Sometimes we hear them and walk out and coax them back overboard. No whales or dolphin have been sighted yet, and we haven’t fished yet since our freezer has been too full. We are glad we will soon make landfall, but we have settled into a nice routine now. That routine will hopefully serve us well on the next leg, because it is 3 times as long – yes, 3 weeks – of sailing to get to the Caribbean from St. Helena.