Day 5 actually started out at night. We decided to sail through the night, and since we were out in the ocean, the Monitor would steer us on our course. We were sailing along at 2-3 knots, so I felt it safe to do a good lookout every hour since we also had the AIS proximity alarm turned on. Most of the vessels out in the ocean at night are commercial and all of them broadcast and AIS signal.
Maddie can't nap. If she puts her head down to sleep, it will take her a long time to fall asleep, and once she is out, she stays asleep for hours. This makes keeping a watch schedule practically impossible. As I come off watch, she would stay asleep!
Instead, I get up at regular intervals to check our surroundings based on our speed. If we are moving quickly, the lookouts are much more often, but if we are moving slowly, then the lookouts can be further spaced out.
Sailing at 2 knots, I felt it was safe to check every hour. This meant that I was climbing in and out of bed every hour for the entire night. When the sun came up, I was exhausted and needed to sleep for a few hours without being disturbed.
We puttered along under storm sails on another perfect day, because we knew that there was a storm south of us, and we needed to stop soon.
Sailing through the night and not sleeping seems pointless when you then have to slow down when the sun rises because you can't go that far today!
Early in the afternoon, we stopped and hove to as we waited for the storm to approach. This storm is starting today (Sunday) and going to last until Wednesday. That's right, Sunday night, all of Monday, all of Tuesday, and into Wednesday afternoon.
Our goal for today was simply to sail away from land to give ourselves plenty of seaway to drift in. This would let us safely heave to and ride out the storm.
As the sun set, the winds began to increase. Wisdom, our sailboat, nestled into her slick as she began to drift laterally through the water. This will be our life for the next few days, so we better get used to it!
As the waves build, sloshing increases, but oddly enough, the heeling doesn't. The trysail spills the wind and merely steadies us as we float up and down over the waves as they come at us, calmed by our slick to windward.
Tonight will be a lumpy night, but at least I wont have to get up every hour to check our position and heading. All we need to do is drift through the storm so we can get on with making way to the Bahamas!
