Day 5 - Daily routine

Date: June 8, 2007
Location: s/v Liberty,
Position: 29 05.93 N 056 26.53 W

We don't have much to talk about today so we thought we'd update you on a few features of everyday life aboard Liberty.

As none of us are big weather experts, we are using a radio net to follow Atlantic weather. The net controller is Herb Hilgenberg, a.k.a. South Bound II. He is Canadian and for years has donated his time to give weather advice and routing to sailors in the Atlantic. The net is on 12359 KHz every day beginning around 3:30 pm EST, if any of you have the want to listen in.
First, everyone checks in and Herb groups them into locations. Then he steps through the list of boats and gives advice on routing. We had been heading NE since leaving St Maarten as this was good for the wind that we were seeing.

Yesterday we checked into the net and Herb suggested we change our course to due East because there was some storm activity to the North East. We have been heading east for 24 hours and are now ready to change course to the NE and head straight for the Azores.
Oops - belay that - Carter just got off the radio w/ Herb and he's advised us to continue due east for another day or so to avoid some front-generated higher winds.

We may need to make more deviations depending on the wind and weather fronts but we've made pretty good progress so far and not had much rain. We've spent the last 2 days motoring as the wind has been too light for us to sail but that should change in the next day or so, we hope.

We were a bit concerned before setting off on this trip as neither of us has been off shore for long periods of time. We weren't sure if we would be a bit scared, sea sick, or just flip out. Luckily none of this has happened (Editor's note: well, one of us DID see a moustache shop...).

Every day all we see is sea out to the horizon and then sky. I know that sounds like it would get old but so far we are enjoying it. The waves and swells are different every day and we've been studying the clouds, trying to make some sense of the weather. We are not going stir crazy, we've settled into a zone, mentally, and we are feeling very relaxed and laid back.

Of course the weather could change or a ship could appear on the horizon at any time so we do not slight our watches or disregard our safety procedures. We all wear harnesses at night when we are doing watches alone and noone ever goes out on deck without alerting someone.
Something that has really struck both of us is the colour of the sea - it really is a lovely Royal Blue. We never get tired of looking at it.

Half the time we don't know what day it is and only know the date and time because we are making log entries every few hours and changing watches every three hours.

The temperature and humidity have moderated a bit - for the last couple of days we haven't had that hot, muggy weather we'd been having in St. Maarten and since we left.

Khorrection: In an earlier Khronicle we said the doldrums were also known as the horse latitudes. Nay! (neigh?) Not so. All the time we've been spending reading has finally paid off. Though our earlier assertion is a very common mistake, in fact the doldrums live around the equator and the horse latitudes live around 25-35 degrees North - where we are now. We figured we'd best "pony up" to the bar and admit our error.

Mark & Julie
s/v Rachel