Day 3

It was another relatively warm, sunny and beautiful day. At 1000, all was still status quo. The only change was that sometimes the wind would move to starboard aft corner for a while, but it usually stayed on the port aft corner. The wind speeds are consistently between 7 29 knots apparent, though they sometimes sit for a while at the higher end of the spectrum, and sometimes stay at lower end of spectrum for a while.

The waves were still big and lumbering, coming at us in long intervals, hitting primarily from the port aft quarter, which makes that terrible corkscrew motion. The waves definitely feel worse when the wind kicks around to the starboard, and the seas become mildly confused. It is still hard to move around the boat, and our bodies are constantly moving to try to stay balanced, even when sitting. As much as we just whined about how not fun these seas are, we have to admit we prefer the more gentle rolling motion over the hard, sharp waves of the Med.

At 1800, the stabilizer started making noise. Argh. The stabilizers are going to be the death of us. The noise stopped later. Weird. The wind stabilized, staying under 12 knots apparent and coming from the same direction all afternoon and evening. The seas are finally starting to follow suit and smooth out, and the ride is getting noticeably gentler. It is still by no means calm, though. Our speeds are also improving, which makes us happy.

The day dragged by painfully slow. Oh, and the bad bilge smell has returned. We had another pad in there, probably a mistake. They start to smell fast.

Day 4

At midnight, there was still no moon yet, so it was a dark night with no visibility at all. Unfortunately, it was cloudy, though in the breaks between the clouds the stars were dazzlingly bright. The little crescent moon finally rose in the wee hours of the morning. It was at the top of the sky now and cast only a little light, mostly behind us, so it was still very dark in front of us.

At 1000 we saw dolphins, which was exciting. We watched them play at the bow for a little bit, but we got cold and came in. Once the sun was higher in the sky it was warmer and we could open the doors. It is progressively getting a little warmer every day, one of the huge benefits of moving south.

Starting in the early afternoon, the seas increased ever so slowly all afternoon and evening. By nightfall, it was back to being hard to move around. The wind had picked up to 14 19 knots apparent and shifted to our starboard beam, so we were getting more side rollers and less corkscrews. And sometimes we get and especially large side wave that knocks us over good. It was another dark night. There is very little boat traffic out here.

We are feeling lethargic and lazy. To make the day go by faster, we watched a lot of TV. Actually, we watched a lot of TV the last two days, but we really went crazy with the TV today, watching an entire season of a TV series in one day. It is hard to believe we still won’t be there for another day and a half.

Day 5

By 0800 the wind had calmed back down to 6 10 knots apparent, still on starboard beam, and seas followed suit. The comfort of our ride is directly tied to wind activity.

It is super cloudy today. It looks like it will rain, which would be nice. In all honesty, it is more pleasant in the pilot house during the day when it is cloudy out. The pilot house gets to be too bright to sit in, even with sunglasses and a hat on. It drizzled a little, but we never got any real rain.

It was yet another very black night with no visibility. Since the clouds were so thick and dark, there was no hope of even seeing a glimmer of starlight in the sky. Our speeds really picked up in the evening and we were flying along. Eric actually slowed us down to 1600 RPM, and it looks like he will have to slow us down some more. At this speed, we’ll arrive in Las Palmas before sunrise. At the moment we are doing 6.4 knots at 1600!

Wind and sea conditions remained stable all day. Nothing exciting happened all day, at least in our world. There was lots of excitement in TV series we are watching. What did sailors do in the old days without pre-recorded TV entertainment?

And, a blog question:

Q: Is the comment Dan made “The monastery figured prominently in the James Bond film “For Your Eyes Only”…” a true statement?

A: There are 6 monasteries actively in use in Meteora. The 1981 James Bond movie “For Your Eyes Only” was partially filmed at The Monastery of Holy Trinity in Meteora, Greece. We did not visit that particular monastery. As a side note, another James Bond movie was filmed in Phuket, on some islands in Phang Nga Bay that were very close to the hawngs we visited. That is two James Bond film sets we missed seeing by literally hundreds of yards.