The weather that we’ve had for the past two weeks has divided the passage up into three different phases, each separated by a weather “gate”.
The first gate was northwest of the Cape Verde islands – a strong upper level low penetrated the upper atmosphere to the surface, and the result was rain, stormy seas, and likely a lot of lightning. But we picked a good weather window for departing, and the 750+ nm that we covered in the first four days had us safely past that low a day before it arrived.
The second “gate” was yesterday evening’s storm activity. A large (and rare for this time of year) low pressure region sat over the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean, and initial forecasts showed a 500nm windless patch as the low disrupted the trades. But in the end, we just had the 8 hours or so of bad weather before the trades restarted.
So now, for the first time this passage, it feels like Oso is on the home stretch. Our course has us headed on a direct path to the north tip of Barbados, and the forecast shows steady winds until near the island.
The forecasts for this trip, however, have been surprisingly inaccurate, at least compared to the excellent accuracy we’ve seen previously on other open ocean passages. So, fingers crossed that the weather holds!
All’s well aboard.
Day Fourteen
172nm
15 18.3N 55 28.5W
