Continuing problems with Yotreps

Passage to Barbados, day 11. We've had a couple of position reports rejected by Yotreps in the past few days. We don't know what they changed on their end that caused the problems (nothing changed here), but we aren't the only ones having difficulty. It's really too bad because there are a lot of people crossing the Atlantic right now, and Yotreps has been a service we've all counted on to keep our friends and family up-to-date on our progress.

After five days on the same tack running downwind with poled out jib, we jibed this afternoon (actually on day 12). There's a lot more to it with the pole involved and some jerry rigging we've done to work around things that have broken (tomorrow's topic). We're hoping to keep this tack the rest of the way to Barbados. We aren't fishing until we eat more of the fish we already have (wahoo salad sandwiches today), so, no, Shirish, no more wahoo, but thanks for asking. :)

Day 11 stats: 166 nm at 275 degrees (6.9 knots avg.). Position at 1500 UTC Jan. 8 was 13°39.167'N, 051°33.511'W.

We haven't been on the net to hear how Orinoco is doing, but we heard on Herb's net last night that Aquila has arrived, so Orinoco should be close to port. Friends of Orinoco will probably hear from Jim soon.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Trouble with SailMail

Passage to Barbados, day 2. We continue to have difficulties connecting with SailMail, and when we do connect, the transfer rate is very slow. As a result, we are not picking up our inbound messages right now, not even the grib files that show the weather forecast. If you need to contact us urgently, please put URGENT in the subject. Otherwise, we'll have a lot of catching up to do when we get a fast connection.

Fortunately, our contact with Herb (South Bound II, 12,359 USB, 1930 UTC check-in) has been excellent, and his forecasts are better than grib files anyway. We also continue to connect with the Rum Runners Net (8131 USB, 1000 UTC), so we hear what weather those ahead of us are having and keep track of our friends' progress. Both of these radio contacts get our position, and we continue to send position reports to YOTREPS, but we don't know if the problem with those position reports has been worked out. We aren't the only ones who had problems.

All is well aboard Solstice (and Orinoco), but the little dog hurt her foot, so we're babying her even more than usual. Our end of day 2 (1500 UTC) position was 14°58.885'N, 028°18.879'W. Our average speed was 5,33 knots, but we only made 117 straight line nautical miles.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

A mahi-mahi Christmas

Tomorrow we continue our Atlantic crossing, heading to Barbados and then on to Grenada. Our week in Mindelo has been spent working on the boat, doing laundry by hand, and visiting with friends. Although we’ve wandered around town a bit looking for the best grocery stores, we haven’t done anything touristy.

Christmas eve the crews of several boats went out on the town. It was fun to meet new people, some of whom (Alua, Free Spirit, and Connect 4) we had heard on the Rum Runners Net, this year’s informal transatlantic crossing short-wave radio group. Christmas evening John cooked more of the mahi-mahi, and we took it over to Avocette of Portsmouth to share with Chris and Roy. Just before we headed to Avocette, our Israeli friends, Liat and Assaf, arrived on Jinja, so we had them over for dinner last night with their friends Noam and Yosephina, and we’re now out of mahi-mahi until John catches some more.

Today we’ll top off our provisions, give the boat a little wash-down, and do our official check-out. In the morning we’ll top off the water and fuel, and then we’re off. Several other boats are planning to leave about the same time, so we’ll have company out there. We’re looking forward to our first sail in the trade winds, and they look good for at least the first week. Daily updates will continue when we’re underway, assuming we don’t use too much time and get locked out of SailMail. Our Yotreps position reporting quit working just before we reached Mindelo, but that seems to be squared away again now. Just in case, we’ll add our position to the end of our blog posts.

P.S.: John heard Orinoco on the net this morning, and all is well with Jim.