Ahhhhhh! I realize it’s 3am, but this is the kind of night you dream about — well, that I dream about — as a sailor. I went topside at 11:30pm, half an hour before our midnight watch, to see what the weather was like, figure out which clothes I would need for the midnight watch, and find out why we were still on a starboard tack headed southeast. Emerging from the hatch, I was greeted by a cloudless sky filled…
So, two days out from being over and done with this summer-long journey, we wind up having what may have been the best day sailing so far. It started with the fresh breeze out of Lerwick, which persisted south of the Shetlands. And contrary to forecasts — not that they’ve been right once this summer — the winds persisted through the course of my 6-9pm watch. We maintained an eight- to 10-knot speed for the three-hour run, and though the…
And of course, since the trip is almost over, the sailing conditions are now spectacular. We left Lerwick this morning amid a nice westerly breeze. The island being to our west, that meant that the wind was moving us along nicely but the seas remained calm. And move along nicely we did: we were over 10 knots for a good chunk of the run south along Mainland Shetland, as it’s known. Now we’re out from under the southern tip of…