We're not alone

Passage to Barbados, day 3. Within hours of the end of day 2 John spotted sails behind us and quickly got on the VHF to make contact. VHF radio has a range that is essentially line-of-sight. The boat was Saba, one we didn't know. They left the Cape Verde islands about when we did, but they're headed to Martinique. We agreed to call them again after we got weather from Herb since they don't have SSB radio, but by then they were out of range. Besides Saba, we know of five other boats in our vicinity, but we haven't seen any of them. It's a big ocean.

All is well aboard Solstice. Little dog Märzen is still limping, but seems OK otherwise. Our end-of-day position at 1500 UTC was 14°36.797'N, 030°29.875'W. The wind isn't letting us go straight to Barbados, so although our total distance was 148 nm (6.167 kn avg), our way-made-good was only 129 nm (5.375 kn avg). Not bad, but we hope to do better.

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