Day 8, Ascension Island to Grenada

1300Z 30MAY22, Day 8, Ascension Island to Grenada. Whew! Have we mentioned it's hot??? Outside air temp is 91°F (32.7°C) and sea temp is 80°F (27°F). It's even hotter inside the boat. Our water tanks sit in the bilge and therefore all water that comes from the sink or the shower is never cooler than 80°F (27°C) which is hardly refreshing or cooling. It has remained sunny with steady trade winds. We continue to move along in the correct direction.

Current Position: 02 28S / 029 08W
24 hour progress: 121nm, 5kts avg SOG. Overall progress for the passage is 973nm, approximately 2131nm to Grenada. We continued sailing downwind on a starboard tack on the asymmetric. To maintain course our point of sail has moved from deep down wind to a broad reach. Since we are no longer blocking as much of the asymmetric at this point of sail, we shook out two reefs in the main this morning and are now sailing with the main at the 2nd reef.

The last 24 hours have been sunny and star filled. There are only small puffy clouds in the sky and no rain clouds whatsoever. The sunset and sunrise were beautiful. The winds have remained steady around 15-17kts. It should be enough wind and a good point of sail for us to put up some decent speeds. However, overnight our speeds dropped to around 4kts over ground. It feels like we are going faster and our in water speedometer suggests we are going faster (but we don't have a lot of faith in its accuracy). So our best guess is that we are getting set by around a 1.5-2kt current. To be honest, it is quite frustrating. Everything is frustrating in this heat.

On the asymmetric our ride has settled out. We still seem to have waves from 2 directions and they are sometimes of significant size, but there is a lot less rolling on board which is greatly appreciated for sleeping and meal preparations.

It is not just the crew that is over heating. We are watching our electronics closely. Our Iridium Go! is quite annoyed at us at the moment. It keeps shutting down due to the heat. We drape white cloths over iPads and the Go! during the heat of the day, but it isn't enough anymore. Seems we will need to keep the Go! off the dashboard of the pilot house when the sun is coming through the pilot house windows turning it into a very warm greenhouse / sauna.

We have begun to see small bits of seaweed floating past. There is also a bit of green algae that is now growing on the lower part of our sugar scoop where the following waves wash onto our little beach. The bottom of the hull is surely turning green too.

Still no hitchhikers last night. Unfortunately also still no fish. The pink squid lure doesn't seem to be any more productive than the cedar plug thus far.