Although a little stressful to start, our first day back at sea turned out to be a real pleasure, one that seemed to make up for the trials of the passage to Bermuda. Unfortunately we missed the 11:00 am start with the rest of the Class A Cruiser boats because we were still waiting (not so patiently) for our turn to fill our fuel tanks. We did get a great view of all the other 31 boats starting in near ideal conditions.

An hour or so late, we raised the mainsail and motor-sailed through the St Georges cut, passing close to an incoming ferry, which probably gave him more cause for concern than it did us. Once out, with genoa filling, engine off, we cleared the reefs and decided conditions were ideal for flying the asymmetric spinnaker, flattish seas, wind about 10 knots just aft of abeam So, we slowly readied everything, being not quite sure how the windward sheet would be led to strop that we had just made up for the tack. Anyway, we got it to work, even if we may make a few modifications the next time we raise it. It is now the morning of Day 2 and we have barely adjusted the sails at all. Another first for us as we have never flown a spinnaker at night before.


We came to realize that the bonus for starting late was that, with the help of the spinnaker, we gradually passed the slower boats throughout the day. This morning we passed Gloria of Southampton, to whom we were rafted in St Georges, another slightly smaller Hylas also with a very pretty spinnaker and is the leader of the group. Unfortunately the faster boats are well ahead so we shall have our work cut out to catch up with them…. but we shall give it a go!
All this was a real bonus. We were expecting insufficient wind for sailing so the thought was that we would be motoring almost due north to reach higher latitudes where there should be more wind. The forecasters predict a windless ridge of high pressure extending eastwards from Bermuda for the next several days so I hope we don’t get caught up in it….
While we all gently relaxed, a fairly large pod of small dolphins happily danced around our bow. I was thinking that just topped off a wonderful day….. but shortly before sunset Mike wound in the fishing lines and found we had caught a large Wahoo! We suspect he had been on the line for a while because he seemed to be weak. Given the time of day and after a photo or two, we decided to let him go …. but the fishing lines are going out again so we are keeping our fingers crossed we may yet manage a fish supper onboard.