We spent the next hour downloading gribs and messages and sending them and I spoke to Sharon briefly via WhatsApp. All seemed OK at home which was a relief after a string of minor disasters and domestic disruptions. Sharon's younger brother Martin and family from the USA (but currently living in Dubai due to Robin's, his wife's , job) are flying in for Christmas on the 20th, so there are frantic preparations on-going at home preparing for their arrival. Vincent has even cleared out the small front room that had turned into a general store room full of all sorts of detritus. Clearly, I'm going to miss a very busy Christmas. We now expect to still be at sea on Christmas Day with an ETA at Port Saint Charles of around 28/12.
The amount of time it took Starlink to connect is a bit of a pain. I never planned to use it for more than downloading weather info and catching up on messages every few days but given the amount of power it consumes before we even get a connection, we'll be lucky if we manage to get another one before we reach Barbados. Next time, we'll try rebooting earlier in whichever stage of its connection cycle it appears to get stuck in.
In a way I regret getting it in the first place. It does, of course, bring the modern and every day world closer, when one of the reasons for doing something like this is to get away from it! On the other hand, with weather systems becoming more and more unstable, being able to get up to date and detailed information on what's going on is increasingly important. It's unlikely to be a critical factor on our current passage - the Atlantic North East Trades very rarely throw up anything nasty at this time of year, but when we head north up the American seaboard next summer, we'll have much less stable weather systems to contend with. The question now of course, is will Starlink be of much use?
It was my turn to cook today. Scrambled eggs on toast for brunch and Chicken curry - again - for dinner. We've now got one half 'fresh' chicken left. Hopefully Mick can come up with something imaginative tomorrow. Maybe after that we'll try our luck with fishing!
Progress has been reasonably steady - we're probably averaging around 5 knots with the generally Easterly breeze blowing for the most part between 10 and 15 knots. We're just over a third of the way across now. Waves have been no bigger than a couple of meters, generally from behind and on the quarter. Life on board has therefore been reasonably comfortable although the constant rolling is a bit of a nuisance especially in the galley and at meal times.
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