Transatlantic: Azores to Portugal: Day 11 [Day 59]

Hope is in the air! And there is a lot of air to give us a good push towards our destination.

The reason we sailed so far North when we left the Azores was to ride across to the top of the Iberian Peninsula with a prevailing tail wind. Then we would sail downwind along the Portuguese coast until we found our harbor and could comfortably sail into it.

You can see that up here, we were able to ride the steady and strong wind straight to our destination without the need to beat into the weather. The course is long, but much easier on the boat and on the crew because it is downwind. As winds pick up speed, so do we which then lowers the apparent wind felt by the boat and us inside the boat.

30 knots of wind when sailing downwind at 7 knots feels like 23 knots of wind. If we were beating into that at the same speed, it would feel like 37 knots of wind! That is quite the spread and we much prefer to be on the calmer side of the spectrum.

Transatlantic: Azores to Portugal: Day 10 [Day 58]

You know that feeling you get when you are out in the middle of nowhere?

At this moment, we were equidistant to NOTHING! Everything was far away and the only thing we have seen for over a week are waves. Sunrise, sunset, and cloudy skies block out the sun. The only difference from day to night is the color of the sky, grey by day, black by night.

We left the Azores about 11 days ago and are now roughly as far from them as we are close to our destination in Mainland Portugal. The funny part is we are actually closer to Ireland right now than we are to any Portuguese territory!

Day in and day out, we have not really enjoyed this voyage as much as our sail to the Azores. That passage was full of warm days and beautiful skies. We spent most of that passage out in the cockpit relaxing, eating, and playing games. This passage has been cold, rainy, and rough. Watch is performed by poking your head out the companionway every so often to confirm that you are still alone out in the middle of the ocean with no one and nothing around you.

Transatlantic: Azores to Portugal: Day 9 [Day 57]

54 nautical miles is not anything to brag about! The winds were not pleasant, and we honestly resembled a cork more so than a yacht.

The winds were variable but the seas were rather sloppy from all the wind that has been in the area. Light winds with large seas is not my favorite time to go forward on the deck to put up more sail. Instead, I much prefer to simply wait it out until one of two things will happen:

1. The winds will return and it’s a good thing that I didn’t put up more sail.

2. The seas will finally calm down and I can comfortably go forward to put up more sail.

Being how the sky was perpetually overcast, it was a safer bet to count on the prompt return of wind instead of the absolute lack thereof. While we didn’t move very much today, we thankfully did move in the right direction!

Transatlantic: Azores to Portugal: Day 8 [Day 56]

June 20, 2019 and we made 109 nautical miles made good!

The winds shifted to be blowing out of the South which let us finally return to our Northern course on a downwind sail. This meant fast and easy miles as we sliced through the waves.

Fast miles in stormy conditions does cut down on morale, but we made pizza! The gimballed oven we installed during the refit in the Azores worked wonderfully. We simply made the pizza dough out of flour, salt, sugar, and water, then added the toppings and put it in the oven. Shortly thereafter we had ourselves some oven-fresh pizza while hundreds of miles away from any pizzeria!

Instead of fighting for those Northern miles over the past few days, we simply sailed East for a while. Then the winds finally came around and we were once again able to head North in much more comfort and style (and with pizza)!

Transatlantic: Azores to Portugal: Day 7 [Day 55]

91 nautical miles made good!

The winds shifted again and started blowing out of the South, and we made some more miles Easterly.

In the morning, the winds were still out of the North, but as the day progressed, the winds clocked around and slowly made their way to the South.

The constant overcast sky and rough seas did wonders for lifting the morale on board as we sailed along towards Portugal. The entire journey could be summed up as this photo: Cold, drizzly, windy, and rough.