Current Position: 10 34N / 049 12W
24 hour progress: 147nm, 6.1kts avg SOG. Overall progress for the passage is 2495nm, approximately 746nm to Grenada. We continued sailing a broad reach with 2 reefs in the main and the genoa poled out. We haven't touched the sails.
The winds have remained steady and constant between 20-25kts with slightly higher gusts at times. The winds haven't really changed direction. We tweaked our course here and there, but we remained on a broad reach headed directly to Grenada. The ride has improved a bit with the waves slightly more aft (or we have gotten used to the motion since it has been more or less this way for days).
Today's weather is gray, dreary and hazy, just like yesterday. The sun never really burned through yesterday which does keep the temperatures a bit cooler. The haze has included more Saharan dust, but it isn't accumulating as quickly as before. Another good wash down will be welcomed in the coming days.
The sargassum weed thickness comes and goes. Last night we passed through massive patches of it for several hours. Jon gave up trying to keep a dagger board down as it was almost impossible to pull it back up after even 5 minutes down due to the heavy weed accumulation. Eventually the weed spread out to the familiar lines and the dagger board went back down improving our course holding and reducing our energy use for steering. The board still requires regular cleaning along with Watt&Sea.
Jon spent the morning getting our inverter to turn back on. It had been working fine since we worked on it back in the Falklands and started treating it a certain way (switches lined up a bit differently than we had sometimes done prior to that point). Yesterday, it again decided not to turn on. That meant Jon flipped numerous switches in different parts of the boat at first to no avail, then generating incremental progress after an hour or so, and finally in a sequence/pattern that made it all work normally again. No idea why it decides to work again or not, but it behaves like there is a capacitor that discharges when we've been off shore power for a long time that then needs to be recharged so the control boards respond as they should. If only it was a documented issue with a documented solution. But how many people install this big of a charger/inverter, stay unplugged from shore power for months at a time without running an AC generator, and only exercise their inverter once every few days? Boats.
The fishing line has remained stowed on board. Conditions remain a bit sporty with large waves. We will wait for calmer seas to put the line back in. We still have some leftover fish that will make a nice curry for dinner.
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