Current Position: 21 16S / 010 15W
24 hour progress: 107nm, 4.5kts avg SOG, about 1 hour on the engine. Overall progress for the passage is 3,431nm, approximately 411nm left to go via a direct line to St Helena.
Yesterday we made slow progress throughout the day. Our course was decent, but the winds were light keeping our speeds a bit low. In the afternoon the winds dropped below 5kts again and our boat speed below 2kts. Additionally, there were rain clouds on the horizon. So we turned on the engine to navigate the light winds that we expected to become shifty and variable around the storm cells. After we were largely through the rain clouds the winds were back to around 10kts, so we secured the engine again and returned to the peaceful slow sailing, making around 4kts.
The night time hours saw the winds come up for a short while and we put a reef in the main which we then shook back out a couple of hours later. We sailed as close hauled as we could and took what course we got, which was often pretty good.
In the daylight hours this morning the winds had built to around 10-15kts. We found ourselves navigating some more rain clouds. Because the winds had built a little, we didn't encounter the no wind holes we had been experiencing. Rather the winds were variable and shifted around near the storm cells so this saw us sailing at variable speeds on a bit of a winding course as well.
We will see how the day shapes up, but we expect today to have higher winds (15-20kts) and thus higher boat speeds, hopefully with a good course to St Helena. Reality may differ.
Yesterday we made our last clock change before St Helena. We are now on St Helena time (UTC) with the sun setting a little after 6pm and rising just before 6am.
We enjoyed pizza in the calmer weather yesterday afternoon. Megan is finding sourdough in the heat a bit of a new challenge. She will figure out a rhythm; in the meantime the experiment continues and the loaves are very edible. We also broke out the cribbage board and have started playing different pairings.
We have had a few ships pass by. Mostly cargo ships headed for Singapore. In the morning yesterday, a ship passed about 9nm astern of us. We were impressed that we could clearly see his white superstructure and bow in the sunlight. We also watched to see if he disappeared over the horizon at around 12nm. He did. The world is still round. Whew. We also had a ship pass about 5nm behind us over night. And a couple more that we could see on the AIS but were too far away to see with our eyes.
We had the fishing line in all day again yesterday without a bite. No luck with the cedar plug. We are back to the squid again today.
Still no birds and still only occasional flying fishes. Speaking of flying fish, we had one hit our windshield last night at a watch turnover. We both heard a strange thud and couldn't locate a cause. We figured it was probably a flying fish. This morning in the sunlight there was a distinctive smear and fish scales on the pilot house window. Seems the poor guy took a hit before flipping back into the sea.
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