jolting of the cabin, and the constant annoyance of salt spray. We were okay with discomfort when it meant speed.
We expected to ride the easterly trade winds until latitude 23 degrees north and then negotiate a high pressure area that lingers east of the Gulf Stream and south of Bermuda. We expected to make excellent progress for about five days and then have to motor through the high. We used a course prediction software to see how it combined the information from the GRIB files, currents, and pilot charts to plot a course to Bermuda. It suggested a course that was due north with a slight westward bow. We realized we would have to pound on a close reach for several days until the trade winds diminished and then hope for advantageous winds in the high. For fun we plotted the course to NY. That course was more downwind, only four days longer, and made use of the Gulf Stream and the stretch of ocean where the trade winds extend a bit further North. I have come to realize that there is no island, no white sand beach, or colorful reef, no fruity cocktail or palm frond bar worth a week of upwind pounding. The spray, the slight nausea, the swamp-ass, the pounding of the rigging. I'd rather sail downwind to New Jersey than upwind to Tahiti. Well, that might be taking it too far, but it gets the point across—NY was looking better and better. We decided to continue on, between the track to New York and that to Bermuda, and decide later according to the wind. On the second night of our passage, we began our watches with this question in our minds. I relieved Max at 1:30 a.m. and began as always, with a cup of coffee above deck adjusting my eyes to the dark horizon. We were still heavily reefed and making seven knots in 4-6 ft waves. At 3:00 am I felt an entirely new, and very strange sensation. I was at the Nav station and it felt, all of the sudden, as if we had sailed into a pillow. The speedometer dropped to zero and waves slapped the hull. If we had been on the Hudson River I would have known that we were aground, but we were far off land and in very deep water. Having experienced that many times, in a confused sea, a certain timing and arrangement of waves hitting the hull can cause the boat to flounder and almost completely stop, so I went above deck to get us back on track manually. It wasn't working. We were completely stopped in the middle of the ocean with considerable waves and 15-20 knots of wind. Twenty-three miles west was the lee shore of Guadeloupe. My heartbeat quickened and I called into the cabin, Max, um, we seemed to have stopped. Max brought up a spotlight and we saw the problem. Back from our rudder ran a thick
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