7 May 2026 at 09:57:35 BST

Day 6 – brought to you by… the crew

It’s Sue’s day off so thought it would be fitting for today’s episode to be brought to you by the rest of us great unwashed, the rabble that lies beneath yes, that is us… The Crew….

For those used to Sue’s writing tones this might be something like the sound track of Bridgerton being gate crashed by ACDC, but hopefully it also provides an amusing interval to normal proceedings!

So the night started off as it meant to continue. Some would describe the wind condition as ‘sub-optimal’, that is to say none, nada, zilch! 20 ton’s no longer glides through the waves but rather flops about like a cork in a large duck pond! Fundamentally no wind, the sails flap about and we go nowhere fast, or just nowhere in fact! So engine went on at 8PM and we motored through the night. At the 12PM watch change Anthony came on and Malcolm thought to try his luck at sailing in 3knots of wind just before going off watch. Somewhat predictably one might say, …… not a whole lot happened! So 15 minutes later and the engine was back on, where it stayed to about 7AM. We found some friends in the night with Sue’s first task having taken the 4AM watch was to dodge a cargo ship that had set itself on sharing the same few water droplets we were bobbing about in, trouble was he was doing 18knots vs our 6 and won in the game of ocean top trumps with “mines bigger than yours!”.

With daylight on us, and half a mind on conserving fuel we again tried to make the big white sail shaped bits of cloth push us through the water. In 4 knots of wind! You guessed it, they flapped about and we made headway of about 1.5knots. Many different sail combinations later Malcolm suggested putting the pole out, happily agreed to by the rest of us crew having suggested the same about 3 different sail combinations ago! Pole out, sail still flapped, but at least wasn’t continuing to fret the sheets and we made progress of maybe 2 knots reaching the blistering top speed of 2.5knots. So taking it as a bit of a hint and having studied Charlies weather comments we decided to push north. That meant getting the engine on in the aim of getting above the light winds and trying to find a high and low weather system wanting to have a good old run at each other; this has the helpful outcome of some useful fronts full of wind for us to play with!

Earlier in the day we saw yellow fin tuna grabbing their breakfast less than a meter in front of the bow but was followed by a shout from Sue saying no fishing was allowed! Having yesterday’s catch put a tasty yet last minute spin on Pauls meal plans, but still turning out brilliantly, it seems like Sue didn’t fancy the idea of a change to her meal! A bit of sashimi sounds good but the thought of getting a whole tuna landed on the boat is maybe an overly interesting prospect! For those not in the know when we each have a “day off”, that means you get a night without taking a night watch but it also means it’s your day to do the meals. It was Pauls day yesterday, Sue’s today.

About an hour before the call came up to get motoring, while all was still very duck pond and cork like, Paul had been debating going for a dip and Anthony had rigged a camera to see if we had any following fishy friends under the boat; remember the yellowfin earlier! Always makes you wonder what gets the depth sounder to suddenly read 2m under the keel when you’re in hundreds of meters of water…! Surely it’s got to be something on the large size to make the boat think its solid ground! At about the same time Sue declared that if the conditions didn’t change in the next hour she would be digging out the Kayak and going for a paddle around the boat, it was her self proclaimed “day to go mad”, after checking what she would like us to do if the boat suddenly picked speed and left her behind she exclaimed it would be perfectly fine. As clearly highly concerned and conscientious crew our only request was just to have that confirmation in writing should it be required later! Entirely coincidentally we assume … but shortly before Sue’s planned kayak adventure Malcolm decided it was high time to forget all this sailing (aka “bobbing about going nowhere”) malarkey, get back to motoring and finding some wind. Secretly I think we all quite liked the idea of going for a dip in the middle of the Atlantic but maybe there will be another day for it……

Malcolm chillin’ on calm sea

As the day marched on Malcolm eagled eyed on deck, between the spots of snoozing with his sunglasses on hoping no one would notice, spotted a pod of whales in the distance. As it gets to late afternoon we have just put the pole away to avoid having a dance on the deck with a 10ft slender aluminium fella while rolling about in the dark. That image in your head might be slightly amusing but we can assure you…. It’s even more amusing in reality. Trying to wrestle this thing back into its home on the foredeck while avoiding running it into anything else, not getting tangled in lines or tossing yourself over the side in the process is an interesting spectacle… especially when your viewing it from the comfortable confines of the cockpit!

Sue spent some time yesterday prepping the meals for today to have a “proper day off”, but has then spent a good portion of the day rescuing and saving various bits of fruit and veg. By all accounts Sue appears to have enjoyed today’s galley adventure given the 1 in 4 days rota. Tonight’s dinner which despite the preparation yesterday, in order to make today’s final assembly simple, somehow still managed to strictly adhere to achieve the classical Sue trademark; no meal is complete until all available pots, pans and utensils have been used. While searching for a spoon to lay the table with Sue’s comment, with considerable excitement, was that she had “excelled herself” against her normal standards of kitchenware consumption, much to the collective enjoyment from us, the crew, as today’s chief bottle washer, assistant plate cleaner and second chief drier upper! Recognising her somewhat exceptional accomplishment Sue offered to help with the washing up so Anthony and Sue washed up, Malcom took to sleeping in the cockpit as the cabin was too hot ahead of his 12PM watch and Paul stood his watch from 8PM.

The remaining fresh produce is ripening at a rapid rate but this is reasonably to be expected given it is 35degC in the saloon and not a whole lot cooler on deck where the sun heats the teak to a perfect foot scalding temperature, and if you step on any of the metal work well.. we’re getting in to SUKAMA branding iron territory! This is leading to a strong supply of fruit smoothies and veg combinations as we prioritise what decides it needs to be eaten first. With the day so hot we have all been hiding from the sun and finding spots to shelter in our self generated headwinds. Anthony has continued to work on the yacht systems from the SSB yesterday to interrogating the plotter settings today and trying to understand how our wind speed indicators appear to be over reading, not a helpful scenario when your trying to choose when to set sails!

In running the engine we have charged the batteries and run the water maker to top the tanks, although the water levels have hardly been touched as we run through the on-board water first. Currently we expect to be motoring most of the night with a good chance we will be at Charlies suggested waypoint ahead of time and hopefully therefore finding some stronger winds tomorrow. As we head to early evening there is positive change with rain clouds appearing on the horizon suggesting a good chance of increased winds overnight so you never know we might get in a bit of sailing before we hit the North Pole after all!

That’s all from us for now. Hope you have enjoyed our little interruption!

Until next time,

The Crew

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Team members: Malcolm, Sue, Anthony, Paul, George the autopilot, Charlie our weather router

Pete and T-J are in the UK receiving and sharing our updates via the wonders of satellite.

Photos and videos from previous crossings by Sukama.

Previous adventure updates

Odyssey 2 start – day 3: https://blackwells.biz/atlantic-odyssey-2-start/

Odyssey 2 day 4 – 5: https://blackwells.biz/atlantic-odyssey-2-days-4-5/