Although it’s more 1055 local time in board (UTC-3), bright sunshine, dark blue sea with white decorations, the next lines are about sailing at night.

Since 2 nights the moon is increasing from half to full. Thus, the moon is, with a clear sky, an incredible illuminator of the sea and what floats on it; e.g. our nutshell MaRe.

The sea at night does not turn blue like during daytime, but all the little wavelets can very well be seen. The white crests of the bigger wave shine. And the moon river makes the surface of the sea very special.

The clouds are clearly visible. It’s even possible to recognize low hanging clouds, which could carry rain. Even the rain falling out of clouds in the distance can be seen.

A wonderful scenario. It sometimes gets something special on top, when the moon disappears behind a cloud and makes the clouds look like Halloween lantern; a bit mystic.

Whoever has the chance to sail at night should take it.

Sailing in the trade wind is very relaxing. Beside changing from reef 2 in the main to reef 1 in the morning, nothing more needed to be done until about 30 min to sunset.

For the night again reef 2 in the main, and the genoa still in full size, MaRe is well prepared for the night and we are sailing with a nice speed at 5 Bft wind from E. If needed, the genoa can be reefed from inside the cockpit.

The swell could be a bit more pleasant, but when 2 swells coming from different directions it’s s bit choppy. But every one off watch will sleep very well while being gently rocked into sleep.

The night brought good progress towards St Maarten while running with reef 2 in the main. Depending on the windspeed we put a reef in genoa as well. This was needed serval times when the wind increased above 20 kn.

After breakfast in the cockpit we changed to reef 1 in the main. Genoa size will be adjusted as wind requests it. And we make about 90 % of our SOG velocity good towards St Maarten.

I expect that in the next days the ETA for St Maarten stabilizes because the main directional component of our SOG is W.

As the seawater got really warm in the meantime, taking a seawater bucket shower at the stern gets more and more pleasant. It seems we reached the warmer waters of the barefoot route.

Sorry for not being able to write yesterday.

The night before was normal. We were well prepared. Sometimes the wind was on the lower side. In the morning we used the gennaker for a while to gain speed. But wind increased again and the gennaker was replaced by main (reef 1) and the genoa. We kept this configuration for the rest of the day.

We celebrated the 1000 NM point; less than 1000 NM to Sint Maarten.

G got another dolphinfish; his biggest. It took him about 30 min

For this night we used the same sail configuration as last night.

Just now we had a squall and low hanging clouds. With a reef in the genoa, we were very well prepared.

During the night the pretty good wind continued. In the morning we set the gennaker for a very short time until the he wind reached the threshold speed. We changed it sails to main with reef 1 and the genoa fully out.

AWA of 120deg makes a COG of around 265 – 275deg while we have a BTW (bearing to waypoint at Sint Maarten) of 272deg.

Averaged over a few hours we are running 5.5 on STW with and SOG just bit higher because a current of 0.8 kn helps a bit.

The autopilot in wind vane mode keeps MaRe well on course. In about 20 h we are closer than 1000 NM to our destination, Sint Maarten.

As usual, just when we sat down for breakfast, a fish bit the bait. Unfortunately it got off of the hook. So G needs to get another one or change his plans for today’s meal.

A few minutes back, B called us because a bird – more than 1100 NM from the nearest coast – attacked the pink colored lure being pulled 100+ m behind MaRe. We are wondering what kind of bird it is. It’s neither a normal seagull not comoran, birds able to fly in high seas. Impolite as birds are, it neither introduced itself, nor did it handover it’s business card.

For the rest, the relaxed atmosphere on board continues. A bit overlayed by the feeling that we finally got the trade wind back and we are sailing fast and direct towards our destination.

One crew member is particularly happy because there will be a charming lady awaiting him in Sint Maarten.

MaRe is happy as well because she sails through a marvelous, blue sea with the white horses of a 5 Bft wind.

During the night the wind stable around 15 – 16 kn TWS, resulting in 4 – 5 on STW.

The sky is covered with clouds. Nothing special. “Are we back in the trade wind?” was a comment by A.

The day was not exciting but with the gennaker we made good progress towards W.

We kept the gennaker until 16 kn TWS and then put it down. This was just the right timing in respect to windspeed.

With TWS of around 15 kn (until 1945) we can expect 4 – 5 kn STW.

Let’s see were we are tomorrow morning.

MaRe runs as good as she can with wind in COG of about 260 deg. Thus we make good way towards W.

However a bit more wind would be nice to get some more speed. But this is sailing.

Today it’s quite on board. One after the took a nap. Sea is gentle.

No fish on the hook until now. Will one bite during dinner? What will the next fish be? With our current STW many fishes can bite the bait. Actually G offers two different baits on 2 fishing rods.

The night was not too fast in average but sometimes, when a cloud passed by closely, MaRe moved faster through the sea. We also got a short, free sky-water shower before midnight.

Beside this MaRe moved with only the genoa and wind from 90 – 150 deg safely through the night. B reported an interesting weather phenomenon, a rainbow with light from the bright half-moon.

As sunrise was today at 0718, we replaced the genoa by the gennaker at about 0800, and went for breakfast. After breakfast the morning look at the weather forecast for the next 36 h and decided to sail a bit S of W.

On this course is MaRe running with around 6 kn. The flow generator produces a nice current. This, with a little bit of converted wind and sunlight we are charging batteries with around 2 – 6 A.

G, who had yesterday a smaller dolphinfish on the hook, released it because it was a smaller one and we still had a big portion from the day before. It was interesting to see that 4 of his brothers and sisters accompanied it until MaRe’s stern. But when it was released, they all disappeared at once from this horrible, first catching sailboat.

Just some minutes before, G passed and showed me the lure of the day. The special pink one for tuna, which brought us 4 dolphinfish. Let’s see what the catch of the day will be.

A tickles the gennaker for a bit more speed so that a bigger clouds from NNE will pass behind MaRe’s sterns.

Board routine.

The problem of the day was the missing wind and the fact that there is no fuel station in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The fuel consumption was nagging on my nerves. On one side there was the need to get out of the calm ASAP, and on the other side there was the consumption of fuel. Brutally constant, although on very slow speed, the fuel indicator move towards 1/2. We watched the wind meter and it did not go up to constant 5 kn. The very nasty thing it did, was showing sometimes even 6+ kn. But, whenever we thought that God of the Winds finally had mercy with us, the wind went back below 4 kn.

We prepared the gennaker well in advance to set it was fast as possible once the wind is enough.

At the end we forgot all pre-conditions and pulled it up. We made 2 kn with the gennaker. Engine stopped thus fuel consumption stopped. My nerves felt better.

Slowly the average wind speed increased an we made good miles over ground.

But what to do with during the night???

As the moon is a bit above half the night could be pretty well illuminated, I thought about using the gennaker during the night. I kept this idea circling in my mind. Can we risk to have the gennaker flying during a bright night???

Then A released me from the pressure by asking about using the gennaker beyond sunset. I felt relieved and we discussed it. Result: we will do it. Limitation triggering “all on deck” was set to 12 kn winds for about 2 min or a squall which might hit MaRe. Everyone has a position, thus task defined.

We checked the 1800 weather forecast, which confirmed that our plan and preparations were matching the possible winds during the night.

In the meantime G cooked again an excellent meal: dolphinfish in lemon-capers sauce with pasta penne. We finished almost our meal, when a dark cloud was close to MaRe at about 45 deg on starboard. Everyone went on the assigned position and in 2 min the gennaker was down. While the gennaker was secured in the port side bow net, the genoa was set already.

With a bit less speed we continued our sail into the night with only the genoa for safety reasons.

At the end, all was good! Let’s hope it stays like this in untill the morning light!