Day 1 St Lucia to Thunderbolt, Georgia, USA
Noon Position 17deg 18N 63deg 45W
Course – 334 Degrees Speed – 10 Knots Day’s Run – 252 Miles
Weather – Sunny and warm
Wind – 15 knots from 110 degrees
Yesterday we cast the lines off to leave Rodney Bay Marina and got about a boat length from the dock before we ran out of water. There we sat stuck in the mud while waiting 30 minutes for the tide to come in enough for us to continue out the channel. There is only a tide of 1 foot but that makes all the difference getting in and out of this marina. At least we cleaned all the barnacles off the bottom of the keel! The rest of the afternoon went smoothly and we knocked off some miles with great motor sailing. It was a bit of a rolly night with light winds from behind.
At 6.30am I put out the fishing lines. An hour later I was regretting doing that after fighting a marlin for the previous 30 minutes. Penny and I saw some great tail walking before it dived. Eventually other crew came on deck to see why we had been stopped for so long and I passed over the fight to Chan to bring it in so that we could release it. We pulled in the lines after that and waited until we got to the Saba Bank to try our luck at something a bit smaller. No luck yet after an hour of sailing along the edge of it.
The total trip to Thunderbolt is about 1550nm which should take us about 6 days.