820 miles from the west coat of India and back in the Arabian Sea, trimaran Musandam now less than 800 miles from Muscat
1400 miles ahead of the virtual 80 day pace boat, lighter winds overnight as expected as they move closer to the high pressure blocking their path
All attention is focused on what the high pressure will do, current forecast’s predict that it will head east and out of Musandam’s path allowing them to skirt to the west of it and reduce the stoppage time in the light airs. Once passed the high pressure, winds should be a consistent 15 knots and push then towards the coast of Oman. If the high pressure tracks west then the story will be different and the crew will be toughing it out for a second time in frustratingly light airs, for the moment they continue north and hope that they can execute the western option, which Charlie commented this morning in a call to Oman Sail HQ was “the right option and to be honest the only option, although we are expecting to be stopped for a period of time, lets just hope it’s not too long”
From Charlie onboard toady “It is another glorious Indian ocean sunrise and it’s pretty clear, it’s going to be a hot day again today. We have a few photos of sunrises now, Hooch in particular has taken the lead in sunrise and sunset photography, so when he asks you if you’d like to see a few of his sunset photos – mumble some excuse and head for the door, as you’ll be there a while – (there’s more than one picture per sunrise on this trip that’s for sure). We have a calm sea, and a gentle north east wind so are upwind full main and genoa, sometimes code zero
We have seen signs of life, with 4 boats yesterday all fairly close to each other – looked like a pair of fishing boats – not sure if they do pair trawling here, but they were at least sisterships, and two others they were really too far off to see any detail and occasionally the eyes on the front of the boat scare a few flying fish out of the water and off into the distance.
Some of our families and friends are starting to head to Oman over the next day or so, and they will get a chance to see a little of Muscat before our arrival. This is starting to make the finish all that more real in our heads and we are starting to make plans for what to do after we arrive, a return to the real world will be great, we have all missed different things on the trip, but we have all missed family and friends. Now that we are going to be back soon, we can turn our attention once again to planning attendance at birthday parties, weddings and all the other social engagements that have been on hold since the new year. There will be a lot of catching up to do and I am guessing the trick will be not to do too much too quickly.
keep your fingers crossed for us not stopping too long in the high, almost certainly tomorrow’s update will be from a becalmed trimaran, but with a crew expectant of increasing winds….. we just have to tough it out “