The Drake

January 11, 2023 Jannette Sluik

Drake it till you make it
During the night of the 9th to the 10th the wind increased rapidly and strongly. With just staysail and mizzen set, we were able to keep a North North West course for some time, giving us a little bit of room for when the wind was to increase or turn more westerly and north westerly.
During the night watch, showers set in and the wind started to become somewhat gusting. With around 30 knots we were doing 8 knots towards our goals, so that seemed to go very well! The seas got a little rougher though, so life on board slowed down a little.. holding on to everything, walking through the hallway bracing yourself and boarding yourself up in bed, so as not to roll out! But thats nothing a little oat porridge with honey, early in the morning, can not fix! By noon the wind had decreased enough to set the jib and in the afternoon we set the reefed mainsail, heading north to Tierra del Fuego.
Now under reefed main and mizzen, forestaysail and number 2 jib, we are still making good progress towards Chile.

As I write this, it is 04:00 local time and it is getting lighter outside. It has not been dark, not really, but the change as we head more north is very noticeable. Where there was a light sky and even a glimmer of ongoing sunset into sunrise, we actually had a period of almost dark this night. It is something amazing about sailing in these high latitudes, be it Arctic or Antarctic, that the light becomes part of you. The sun might not be very warm, it is nearly always there. You get used to being on anchor watch and being able to see everything, icebergs, birds, whales, all of it. So now that it is getting darker again, it feels somewhat unsettled.
But not just the light is changing, the temperature is also changing. We have already gone up 3 degrees, to a 5 degree night watch instead of 2 degrees to even 0 degrees! This also means that anything falling from the clouds, is no longer frozen.. and so it is very wet!