Location: 35° 26N, 64° 24W
Wednesday, 05.07.2008

The Schooner Maggie B was at 35° 26N, 64° 24W at noon on May 7th. We are close hauled, making for our Gulf Stream entry point at about 7 1/2 knots. We are headed NNE and the wind has backed a bit to WNW, and diminished from 25 knots to 17-20. It is rather a rough ride. The waves aren’t big — the biggest perhaps only 10 feet, but the period is rather short and we get occasional unpleasant vertical drops.

We have come 172 NM from Bermuda and have 551 to go to Lunenburg. We still anticipate arrival in Lunenburg at about noon on Saturday 10 May.

It feels a bit as if the Maggie B is remembering the wave period of the North Atlantic and relearning how to best handle it. Like a skilled dancer going from the Argentinean Tango to Brazilian Samba to Nord Americano Foxtrot. We hope that we won’t be Charlestoning when we hit the Gulf Stream! We should enter the Gulf Stream about noon tomorrow. The wind should have backed to the West and the current flow is from the Southwest, so hopefully there won’t be too much excitement.

We are surprised that we haven’t seen a single bird in the last day. This kind of weather usually brings out the Stormy Petrels, but none are about. Perhaps the Gulf Stream is just too interesting, or they haven’t completed their pilgrimage back from the South as yet. We did have a lovely pod of about 15-20 Striped Dolphin (Stenella coeruleoalba) playing around our bow yesterday. It was interesting that there was one Spotted Dolphin (Stenella plagiodon) with them. At first we thought he was “Dad,” with a bunch of teenagers. He didn’t mix things up around the bow like the rest and stayed rather on the outskirts, like a distant cousin at a rowdy family swim party.

All is well.