Thrill Seeker 😁
It's 0200 local Greenland time and I've just started my Watch. The wind is blowing from the West North West at F6-7, stronger than the predicted 20 knots I'm sure. Bonny is storming along at 7+ knots on a SE by S course with two reefs in the mainsail and 2-3 rolls in the genoa set to leeward. The wind is abaft the beam and come daylight/Watch handover, we'll probably pole it out to starboard in order to run off a little more and head a bit further eastwards whilst hopefully avoiding getting ensnared in Erin's clutches.
The rest of my Watch delivers more of the same and we expect it to continue for another couple of days. We defer the sail and course change until later having concluded that on balance getting further south at this stage, is better than going further east.
It's about 1100 local Greenland time (1200 UTC) and now that we have both had a morning nap to catch up on sleep we make the sail and course change. It's an easy one thankfully. I had rigged the starboard pole before we left the Sund in anticipation of the change, so all we had to do was furl in some genoa to make it more manageable and then haul it out on the pole and then let out roughly the same amount once again. We didn't have to leave the cockpit for that, although George did leave it briefly to plug the dorade vents with sponges in an effort to reduce the icy streams of air funneling into the cabin.
We continue to make good progress south-east at 6+ knots. The seas have built somewhat and we are rocking and rolling quite a bit. I manage to get Starlink to connect (it can be quite reluctant to do so whilst the boat is rolling) and we download updated weather files and review our earlier weather route in light of the latest predictions. The broad picture is pretty similar and Erin's current behaviour and the latest predictions of her future behaviour don't appear to have changed a great deal. She is due to stall and dissipate between Iceland and the British Isles in a few days time and our weather will be increasingly determined by a new low pressure system developing south west of Greenland and tracking eastwards.
We also check messages on the OCC Greenland/Iceland group to see what the other boats are planning to do about their departures. At the time of writing this on Monday evening, those messages are eight hours old, but at the time they were written, one boat was considering a crossing to Iceland another was going to go up the east coast of Greenland and the third was still in wait and see mode. We feel a little out on a limb with our 'go for it' approach, but we've done our homework on the weather and can keep tabs on the situation as it develops thanks to Starlink and are confident our approach is a sensible one.
During the afternoon we examine the drone footage I took during its two rather erratic flights in Princ Christian Sund. Much of it is pretty scrappy but I did get a few minutes of good video of Bonny near the glacier and am pretty pleased with that - and of course I have defied Vincent's predictions and am returning with the drone!
After taking the initiative to review our weather route after that, George is feeling a bit queezy this evening and so I cook dinner.
Pasta Carbonara (sort of). It's actually very tasty and is the first thing either of us has eaten since a very late breakfast of granola, fruit and yogurt (except tea/coffee and biscuits.
He very kindly says I can knock off early after dinner so I gratefully climb into bed at 2030, update the draft blog and will now hopefully fall asleep.
Well I did on and off, but Bonny was pretty lively and so I kept getting shaken awake!
Our midnight to midnight run was 150 somewhat uncomfortable miles which I think is amongst the fastest 24 hour runs Bonny has done under my ownership. The distance to Lands End is 1288 nautical miles. The distance the previous midnight was 1374 nautical miles and so we're 86 miles closer than we were then. Not particularly impressive but we are having to run a long way south of our direct line because of storm Erin. In a few days time we will hopefully be able to take a more direct route.
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