23’26.7S 033’28.1W course 220′ speed 6,1kn
Today we have passed underneath the sun, we have out run her on her way South and are now officially to the South of the Sun. During culmination this afternoon, it got hard on the celestial navigators. The sun was right above us, and finding its lowest point on the horizon was very hard. Going from looking South, to looking East to looking slightly North of East! And with that we passed underneath her.
The Sun is still on her way to the tropic of Capricorn, on the 23’26th degree from the equator, which will indicate the hight of summer in the South and the hight of Winter in the North. Around the 21st of December, the North with have her longest night and the South will have her longest day, as the sun hovers there and then makes her way back to the equator. In the North we have several names for this moment, Juul, mid winter etc.
As you can see in our Latitude at the start of the logbook entry, we have just made our way out of the tropics, around 01:00 we passed under neath the tropic of Capricorn and so are now officially out of the Tropics. Does that do anything for our immediate situation? Well, no, it’s still very warm, 25,8 degrees celcius and the water is hanging on to the same warmth, but it will start changing soon. Starting during the day we will have a change in wind and likely from tomorrow onward, we will feel a change in temperature as well. Our days are lengthening, with sunrise around 5 in the morning and sunset around 19:00 in the evening.
As we passed Cabo Frio on the Brazilian coast, the cold spot on the coastline of Brazil, where the Antarctic current comes from the depth onto the land (water temp on Cabo Frio is actually around 18/19 degrees!), we also noticed we lost our 0,5 to 1,5 knots of current running with us South.
As I said just before dinner, we are in for it now!
We have another 2050 miles to cover on our course line. And we have come to the bit where we are in for variable weather. Our weather report was giving us North winds, 12 knots, but sadly for us, this turned out a lot lighter. With 6 knots down wind, we see the engine fumes next to the ship most of the time.. So yes, we are under engine since 17:00 this afternoon, making as much South West as we can. During the day we will pick up more wind, backing to the North and even Northwest most likely.
In anticipation of that, we gybed under engine, just now. Getting our sails on a starboard tack and getting our coffee and tea to the high side again!
Picture of the day was won by Joel, our pictures of the day are taken between 18:00 one day to 18:00 the next.. so this is still a picture of the beautiful BBQ from the 5th. Last night we had lasagna, as I thought it would be hard to even get close to the level of our amazing half way meal, I thought just go for every bodies favorite, Lasagna!
All is well on board,
Jet
