(see http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/winlink.cgi?KG4EYP for latest position)

We're motoring again on a flat calm ocean, heading for the edge of the Gulf Stream. We've got about a knot and a quarter of current with us, although quite a bit of it's sweeping us north: our actual course over ground is nearly 25 degrees off our heading.

At the center of the GS, we were making 9.4 knots while motoring - that's about three knots of current, increasing our speed by about half! So we sailed for a while in the light winds, because even though we were only ghosting along, that extra 3 kts kept our speed respectable.

(I should say that Britt sailed in the light winds; I was asleep, enjoying the silence, although of course sailing isn't exactly silent, with the creak of the boom, the slap of the waves, the occasional flutter of sail. When I came out to join him, the wind was already starting to fade, and we ended up turning on the engine about half an hour later.)

The white skyscrapers of the Florida coast are already visible, twelve miles away. And as I write this, our course is abruptly changing all by itself, our northward sweep reduced to a deviation of under 10 degrees. We're surrounded by thick clumps of sargassum seaweed (which Britt is busily clearing from the fishing lines, set with barbless hooks for catch-and-release). Our speed over ground is approaching our speed over the water. Bye-bye, Gulf Stream. Another couple of hours, and we'll be
back in the US.
- posted by S/V Windom @ 6/11/2007 [link]