Commodore
March 5, 2023

Sunday 5 March – Trade winds at last!

I was on the 6-9am shift, I took over from Megan, she said the wind was just beginning to pick up a little. I got very excited as we were getting consistently over 10knots wind speed. I thought I would give it 20 minutes just to make sure it wasn’t the result of a passing squall. 18 minutes went by and I was just getting my hopes up it may be the Trade winds we are so desperate for, when suddenly the wind speed dropped to below 6 knots and stayed there. We’ve used up half our fuel now and we are so ready to switch off the engines and get the doldrums behind us.

Just after 8am, I was just finishing off my Sunday Times Very hard Sudoku when I noticed a little something in the air, the sea was rippled and the wind speed started climbing, it lasted 15 minutes. Rowan came upstairs just as I was about to call him and we now believed we had definitely hit the Trade winds. We got the main sail and Sporty (Code Zero) up to start with, and engines off, what bliss! We have been sailing ever since which has been a real moral boost. Nevil caught a wonderful big Wahoo and the prospect of sushi boosted our moral even higher! He is an expert at filleting the fish and leaves everything very clean and tidy which is a real added bonus.

For most of the afternoon we had Scary (the Asymmetric sail) up and were averaging around 9 knots of boat speed, making everyone very happy. Han led us girls in a yoga exercise routine, which was very good for me, I certainly needed it. We celebrated hitting the Trades at afternoon tea by opening the delicious mint/pistachio dark chocolate fridge cake that Phoebe had made for us. It was meant to be kept until we were halfway through but we needed to celebrate in style, we were so excited about hitting the Trades.

The men started preparing the sushi, with half vegetarian for Han and Megan. It was an absolute feast, it looked so professional and tasted amazing, with cucumber and avocado in the rolls. Rowan had bought sushi seaweed wraps and a sushi roll mat out with us. We have wasabi, ginger slices, Ponzu sauce and some delicious smoked soy from Japan with us for this exact moment. We’ve been waiting for a good sushi fish to be caught for over the past year and it’s finally happened! Wind and sushi meant It was smiles all round tonight. We got Scary down and put Sporty back up for the night, much safer and calmer for us, even though we are still averaging a respectable 9knots of boat speed.