Mother Nature has not been cooperating. Starting two nights ago, we motored 18 hours (through the night and into the next day). We sailed from about noon to 6:00 p.m. yesterday, then had to go back to motoring. We motored all night. One good thing about this: The light wind made it easy for us to empty four jerry cans of diesel into the tank. We also did some housecleaning. 🙂

It is 3:00 p.m. as we write this post. We have been sailing since about 8:30 this morning. We got tired of the light wind, so we changed direction to get to the wind. Unfortunately, we are not sailing in the direction we want to go.

We would like to be sailing east, but we are going northeast. (Madeira is far to the east of us, and a bit south.) We plan to sail southeast when the wind strengthens and changes direction. Based on the look of the front, this should happen in a few hours.

Speaking of the front, there is a huge low front to our north and a high to our south. In between the two, the wind is too light to sail. Hence, our current direction.

The weather has, of course, directed our passage. What we initially predicted to be a 16-day trip to the Azores is turning into what will likely be a 21-day trip to Madeira via a very indirect route. Ha ha!

Later the same day . . . Today’s highlight: A small pod of dolphins visited us!

Michael suggested that our readers might wonder what we eat on board. In the morning, Yulia makes eggs with something. Something = ham, bacon, peppers, onions, mushrooms, etc. This, until we run out of the “with” item. We also have bread, yogurt and granola available for the times we sleep through breakfast. 🙂  And, of course, we have coffee!

Our second meal (usually around 5:00 p.m.) consists of some kind of meat with veggies or potatoes. We have tea and dessert afterwards.

We also have snacks – including chocolate (whew!) – available if we get hungry.
Since we go to bed early (except for Kirill, who always takes the 8:00 p.m. to midnight watch), we hit the sack within one to two hours after finishing our dessert.

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