Day 7, November 21, 2009
24 12.9 N latitude 63 25.4 W longitude

Hello Everybody,

We are motor sailing slowly. We’ve made 138 miles today, down considerably from our normal average of 180 and our earlier daily totals of just under 200. There isn’t much wind, generally 5 knots of wind with 12-15 in an occasional squall, so we’re running the engine at 1500 rpms with the mainsail rolled out. The wind is on the nose, so we can only roll out a jib occasionally. We’re still around 450 miles from Antigua and have at least another 24 hours until we find real wind. While we’re watching and wishing for wind, we are also checking our fuel burn rate and plotting strategies to get further faster. So far Kim is being quoted as having the best idea. “When we run out of fuel, we’ll race to Antigua”. The small boat racing skills will come into play. Certainly it’s not the briar patch: we’ve got lots of food, plenty of water, sunshine and possibly a chance to swim. And we all really think the lowered speed will reduce the burn rate enough to get us to the wind.

Meanwhile we’ve had a nice day. Kim treated us all to a big breakfast: bacon, potatoes and eggs. That was followed by lox & bagels for lunch and taco salad for dinner. We had showers all around, the water is 83 degrees. We’ve had the fishing lines out, but no fish. We have been able to open hatches throughout the boat, a very unusual treat and a result of the lack of wind. We watched a movie last night, The Edge, and tonight’s movie is 50 First Dates. As you can tell, we’ve been relaxing.

All the best from Avalanche, wishing for wind.

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