Well, unfortunately you’re stuck with only one update today… I was in Lowe’s buying wood for my deck when Jake called in the first report. They also had pretty bad satellite reception at the time (plus I was in Lowe’s) so it was hard to hear him exactly. He still sounded to be having a great time and he reported they’d been sailing pretty much the whole way. He rattled off all these delicious meals they’d had that I can’t remember (but NOT fish!). Dad did say they (mom and dad) had a squall develop right over their head. They could see it on the horizon, but nothing on radar. Then, right as they went under it, RAIN!!! and then the radar picked it up!

From his report, their location was 23N 64.24W

Now Peter just called in another end of the day report. This time with excellent reception and me at home with something to take some notes on. Pete reports the water is 78 degrees, so 4 degrees cooler already. They’ve got even better wind at 18kt from the east right now. They’re making 8.75kt over the bottom. They’re roughly 450 miles south of Bermuda (check the location link at the top!). Pete and Nancy are having a wonderful evening with no moon and some amazing stars. They have the yankee, main and staysail out. The fish score is still the same, but maybe not? Pete says the “1 barracuda” was “just a little guy”… interesting to hear BOTH sides of the story. Plus his marlin grew a bit I think? Yeah, the one they didn’t catch… He also reports the fish aren’t at 5 but rather “about a million” so it sounds like they had a bunch of bites today but no luck. Pete also said it’s a bit warm on the boat as they’re sailing and the hatches are all closed and no AC w/o the motor/gen (they’re conserving fuel to try to make it in one shot, at least fuel wise). So have some sympathy for them would ya!!!!

Well that’s all the details I can remember/make up! avalanche calling in from 24.50N 64.48W

Well they’re all still having a great time sailing. Haven’t had to motor yet. The reel news tonight is that they had a ~150lb white marlin on the line. It was on Pete’s side. He had watched it try to get the lure w/o much success, but it finally hooked up. It took off and they had to slow the boat down while they were fighting it. It ended up eventually breaking the line as well as the rod holder from the force it struck the line with! That makes the score Jake’s team 1, fish 5 (apparently it was 4 before), brown boobies -1 and Pete 0.

They’re sailing along smoothly with a max wind speed of ~15kt. They had the wind as far forward as 45. They had to motor for a couple of hours today but that’s much better than they were expecting. They’ve got a 1kt current going against them and are making roughly 8kt over the bottom. The forecast is good for sailing, but they are still expecting that trough to come through.

22.00N 64.00W

OK, so they’re still sailing and having a great time of it (you can hear it in Jake’s voice, he’s STOKED!). They’ve got 12~14kts of wind with the code 0 rolled out, so they’re making progress, but only around 160~170nm days right now. They’d like to report Ruleo chefed up some bratwurst for lunch yesterday and Leo cooked some shrimp scampi last night for dinner. The fishing score is still Jake’s side 1, Pete’s 0, fish 1 and birds -1. They’re expecting “squally” weather today and into tomorrow but haven’t needed the motor yet (so dealing with rolling sails in and out for squalls doesn’t hurt as much). They had a quiet lovely night sailing last night. They also reported 2 flying fish on board this morning with one big mark on one of the dodger’s window and a 12′ skid mark on the starboard side. The watch didn’t hear them come aboard in the night though.

That’s about all he had for me reporting from 20.41N 63.40W.

OK, this is Ben posting from boring old RI.  The satelite phone on the boat isn’t receiving enough power to email the updates out, so instead they’re calling me, reading me the update and then I’m posting what I can here.  So you won’t get all the great stories unfortunately, but at least you’ll know what’s going on.

So yesterday they left Antigua and sailed to St Martin to attempt to get the satellite phone fixed.  The realized they’d get there in the middle of the night/early AM so they slowed down their sailing to arrive in the morning.  Apparently this caught the attention of the dutch coast guard, who came along side and asked enough questions to figure out what was going on.  From there, they arrived in St Martin at 7:30 am.  Jake went into customs only to be charged $47 just to find out it was a holiday and they wouldn’t be able to get any help anyway (and therefore would be on their way).

But all is not bad down there, they’re reporting the water is a bathtub-esque 82º!  They’ve also already farmed their first fish (Just for the record, Ruleo lost it).  They seemed to be in great spirits and said they were having a great sail so far (typically when we leave it’s a solid 2 days of motoring before MAYBE getting some sailing in).  

They’re location was 18.00 N 63.12 W When they called.  I’ll update the map linked above.

ring ring goes the phone!

We’ll they phoned in another update tonight. I got to talk with both Jake and Ruleo and both sounded like they were having a blast. They’d like to report the fishing score at Jake, Ruleo and Leo 1, Pete 0, Fish 1 and Brown Boobies -1?! Apparently a brown boobie was being very persistent with their lure and finally caught it. So they reeled it in and released it. Ruleo also managed to reel in a Barracuda under sail (he reported it being the best/hardest fight he’s every had due to not slowing down). They also let that go because of the issues with fish poisoning. I’m sure that killed Ruleo, but it’s not worth the risk when starting a ~10+ day voyage.

They’re also reporting excellent sailing in wonderful weather (famous last words?). They’re planning on sailing tonight and into tomorrow when they’re expecting lighter air and most likely motoring. They’re then expecting a trough Saturday night and into Sunday, which won’t be pretty, but they also said they’re expecting “prolonged sailing” after that. AKA it’ll be a tad windier than perfect conditions for a bit, but then they’ll have an awesome ride for a while after. A trade I’m sure they’re all willing to make -vs- having to motor for days on end.

That’s all I got before they lost the satellite, they called that in from 18.58N 63.24W.