Jason here...

2006-06-13
38°52.638N
58°56.443W
18 :15

Jason here. The past two days have been thrilling indeed. Our course
had called for us to head pretty much due East to the Azores, just over
two thousand nautical miles from nyc. The wind behind us which we had
been riding since the last blog entry was from the southern section of a
low which passed by to our north. This was what created the high seas
which we’ve been busy surfing down the face of from the tenth until
yesterday morning. My top speed by the way was 12.9 kts – not too
shabby. We had wind speeds mostly in the mid twenties to low thirties
but there were a couple of gusts in there over forty knots. There
wasn’t much sleep to be had since the auto pilot doesn’t work all that
well or for very long and the boat had to be steered very carefully in
order to take the high waves well. Anyway, we had a bit of a rest
yesterday only until we learned from our weather routing service (which
we receive via email through our satellite phone!) that we were right in
the path of Tropical Storm Alberto which is making it’s way up the coast
of the U.S. as I write this. We didn’t lose much time before adjusting
our course to SE, and for the last twenty four hours we’ve been putting
on as much speed as we can and as much distance between us and some
weather serious enough to be named. I think we’ll be out of the way of
the worst of it by the time it reaches us and that it will pass by to
the north of where we will be leaving us with winds no stronger than
with which we’ve already dealt if with seas a bit higher than the last.
I’m afraid the fishing reports will be on hold for the next few days.
In other words, we’re going to have our hands full for at least five or
six days and hope you can wait for news about the fish until then. But
just to hold you over: The evening before yesterday we were joined by
what seemed dozens of dolphin all swimming and jumping and racing with
the boat. We cheered for them and I shall not soon forget the sight of
a handful of the graceful creatures diving towards us down the back of a
nine foot high wave which just passed beneath us. Magic!
- JAV