#3. Cape Verde - Barbados | Day 9 At-Sea

14 February 2024
2308 Ship’s Time
13º 10’ N, 052º 52’ W
Steering 285º at 8-9 knots

We’ve slowed down a touch today with some lighter winds, but are still above our 200 miles per day threshold over the past 24 hours. You get spoiled when you top out at 220+!

I’m tired as I write this. It’s the tail end of my 2000-0000 watch. I’ll get 4 hours off, then stand the sunrise watch from 0400-0800 before getting a longer 6-hour break from 0800-1400. We run a staggered watch schedule on FALKEN whereby myself or Manot is awake, but staggered so that we get to overlap with each of the crew watches and thereby get to sail with everyone on the boat. The Port watch is on right now, standing their 2200-0200 stint. The waxing moon has provided the perfect runway by which to steer — keep the moonlight on the horizon just to starboard and the boat is bang on course.

We’ve crossed the 400-mies-to-go barrier. While it’s still a long way off, talk has begun of landfall and arrival procedures. I’ve been quick to quell it to keep people in the moment, but by dinnertime tomorrow night it’ll be inevitable. The ‘philosophical middle stage’ of this long voyage will end and the ‘landfall’ stage will begin. The crew, myself included, will shift our focus from the present to the future. We’ll look at the charts and plan our pilotage on arrival to Barbados (necessary); we’ll talk about the first food ashore we’re gonna eat and how good a cold drink is going to taste (superfluous but fun!).

But that’s for tomorrow. Tonight, we’re still in the present-tense, still gazing at the same stars that we’ve been sailing to for over a week now, still discussing the finer points of life at sea and still hot and sweaty from the afternoon heat. I’m topping up the water tanks tonight with a long run on the watermaker in anticipation of our last showers at sea tomorrow afternoon.

// Andy