Day 1, St Martin to the Azores

1600Z 28MAY23, Day 1, St Martin to the Azores. After almost a year break from crossing the Atlantic Ocean, it seemed time to do it again. We enjoyed a much more leisurely cruise through the Caribbean this time through, but after a year in the heat it is time to find cooler climes. We are hoping to cruise Northern high latitudes next and decided we would get there via the Azores. With the preparations complete, we set off!

Current Position: 20 05N / 062 35W
24 hour progress: 132nm, 5.5kts avg SOG, approximately 2080nm to Horta. We knocked about 100nm off of the rhumb line course with our NNE course.

It was a tough "see you later" to our wonderful friends on Paikea (www.youngbarnacles.com). We have spent many nights as neighbors between Martinique, Antigua and St Martin. It's been excellent spending time with them again since meeting 5 years ago in Barcelona when we were both new to this family cruising stuff. They are also prepping to cross to the Azores but should be faster then us and still have some tasks remaining before they set off. See you in the Azores!

We had a few hiccups getting underway. Our windlass problems persist, but perhaps we are closer to understanding the root cause of the issue (or maybe we aren't). After a bit of work and another swapped stripper we weighed anchor at around noon local. We crawled out of the bay as we got things sorted and the boat setup. By 12:30 (16:30 UTC) the sails were set and we were sailing.

The weather routing has us going NNE so we decided to leave Anguilla to our starboard and had a downwind sail and some wing on wing time. We were soon clear and set up on a close reach, making 015-020 COG.

There were some morning rain showers as we prepped to get underway, but we haven't gotten any significant rain along our path. We've been sailing with 2 reefs in the main and went to 3 reefs briefly due to some rain on the horizon but we easily avoided it and were back at 2 reefs until sunset when we put a third reef in for the night. The winds have been 15-20kts with a bit more for the first half of the night and we put a reef in the genoa. Speeds slowed overnight (sargassum, current and lower winds all contributed). When the sun rose reefs were shaken out and the daggerboard and Watt&Sea cleared of the sargassum resulting in a welcome boost.

The crew is in good spirits. We are all happy to be on the move - even after a tough goodbye and a rough start to getting underway. Poseidon has been sick and then drooling, but is moving around for water. We all feel a bit sleepy and are trying to relax into the rhythm of the passage.

The fishing line is in, but regularly needs clearing of sargassum so it might not stay out. We saw a good number of birds - boobies and terns - yesterday. We are down to the occasional masked booby now and some flying fish. Otherwise it's blue, sunny and hot.