We’re now in Mindelo, our last port of call before we cross to Barbados. The last few days have been spent doing final provisioning; walking the local markets to find fresh fruit and veg for the crossing. The marina is absolutely packed with various “yachties”, so there is an excited energy around the place. There is a floating bar and restaurant on the pontoon that is pretty much always packed. Tates did an amazing job getting us custom polo shirts made up for the crossing.
One of my main focuses at the moment is keeping an eye on the weather and working out when best to depart. As of now ( 3pm Fri 22nd), we’re looking like we’ll depart tomorrow morning (10am Sat. 23rd). It’s a day later than originally planned, but the waves are currently at 3M out around the island and whilst not unsafe, it would be uncomfortable, so we’ll wait for them to settle down a bit.
At the moment the routing is showing a few different choices, where we can either take the direct route or head a bit further south. The reason for this is that there is going to be a period of lights winds in the middle of the Atlantic, so heading a bit further south would mean we can avoid it and hopefully not have to motor too much. Right now the models are showing a passage time of around 15 days. I’m also looking to see if there are any forecast weather systems moving in. At the moment it’s looking good, although New Years day might be a bit windy (but that’s a long way out in the forecast).
Finally i’m checking the forecast waves, clouds, rain and electrical activity. At the moment, this all looks ok and the waves should be behind us, so they’ll be pushing us along rather than rolling us around.
so, providing nothing changes, we’ll be off tomorrow. We’ve filled up the fuel tanks and will top up the water tomorrow morning. Nauts is ladened down with food and drink, so hopefully we have everything we need for our time at sea… Will keep you posted on how we’re going.
