12/12/2017 – N27˚40.88 W79˚16.98 Gulfstream – 106 nm
Almost to the Bahamas. We’re racing the sun, trying to get to the Old Bahama Bay Marina before dark. Only 106 nm made good these past 24 hours due to the big turns across the Stream, but good speed.
Yesterday we had Paninis for lunch, I grabbed a few more sun sights (down to a 20nm radius, meh), then the winds started to get behind us triggering us to think about setting up Chris’ new spinnaker for the first time. We first unbent the damaged Solent, then set up the sheets and guys (no pole on a cat! Weird) and sent the sock up with a halyard. Tangles and mess while the sun went down, but we finally got everything straightened out and released the sock. Huuuge spinnaker! But with the flukey winds and rolling waves, we had a tough time keeping it filled, so dropped it after about 20 minutes. Good to see it flying, though.
We turned a hard left and motored across the Gulfstream at a right angle, smooth conditions, light winds. I slept the whole night through with no watches for the first time, waking up to decidedly warmer weather at 6.
The wind slowly built up enough to raise the main and full jib as we made a straight shot towards the west coast of Grand Bahama Island.