25’00.4S 033’03.2W course 174′ speed 7kn
Today we sailed out of the Torrid zone between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, 23’26S! This is the zone where the Sun is, at some point in the year, straight overhead of the earth. So the true tropics! Of course we immediately noticed the difference in temperature and weather.. or so we wished, but no, we are still very much under the influence of heat and big tropic showers. During the day we had some massive cumulus build up around us and one of them swepped right over us. It was just after lunch and all of a sudden it seemed like it was getting dark. Grey skies covered us and brought a lot of rain and some extra wind with them. As a precaution we started lowering the mainsail. We had 10 persons on deck getting it down, and 10 minutes later, we had 10 persons on deck getting the sail back up!
The shower left us completely soaking wet! If we had not been so busy with the mainsail, this shower would have been enough to shampoo and rinse our hair AND use conditioner before it was over!
Right now we have showers around us as well, its dark, the moon has set around 00:30 board time. But this makes the stars shine all the more bright. The milky is clearly visible and that makes the rain bearing clouds visible as well.. as then start passing in front of the bright stars, a shadow is cast on us. Tim has his rain pants on, so hopefully that helps keep the rain away.
During the day we also had time to do some sanding of our blocks and do small chores around the deck. Which is good, as we keep moving towards the colder climate, we should be finished soon with any painting and varnishing!
Other then that.. all is well on board, jet
