05’54.9S 014’42.2W course 270′ speed 7,1kn
It has to be done, we need more West in our course.. crossing the equator at 14′ West would mean many many miles of doldrums ahead of us.. To cross at a narrower doldrums bit, we have to start crossing them between 18 and 20 degrees, or so I planned it. Our planned course is 315′, but on our Portside tack we could only do around 335′, Not bringing us the 18 degrees West.. So we tried out our Starboard tack.. but that means sailing due West, or sometimes even South of West for a little bit, Ouch. I cant look at the GPS course any more, loosing our North is just too painful.. So… Just sit outside, enjoy the beautiful sail, under a bright bright moon, with a warm breeze in your neck and wind filling the sails.. just dont look at the compass too much, nor the GPS.. We are heading 265′ right now…
During the morning, just before we put in our gibe, a big shower rolled in. Dark clouds, small increase in wind and just a wall of water coming towards us! Get your shampoo ready, its going to be a big one! And Tom and Max did! Swim shorts on and shampoo in hand, they were ready in 1 minute! The ladies stood under the mizzen sail, the men under the mainsail, enjoying the refreshing sweet water from the skies! It cooled all of us down for a little bit and we were in great need of that!
After the shower passed the wind seemed favorable for a gibe.. ofcourse that did not last very long, but we did it anyway.
We are getting fairly good at gibing! Practice makes perfect. We’ll do it again around noon.
For dinner we decided we wanted vegetarian burgers, pita buns, potatoes and coleslaw and we wanted it outside. We voted picture of the day, which Joel won with a picture of the shower under the mizzen, and then we dug into our messy but extremely tasty dinner as the sun was setting and the skies colored bright pink and red.
Life is good on the high seas!
All is well on board, Jet
