22 boats left Wednesday, we waited another day when only 5 boats left. What did we miss? We heard on the SSB that there was champagne sailing out there, so in search of that we go.
Looks a bit sporty?
We are now just about 12 hours into the journey and if we had any champagne it certainly would be shook up and have lost all its great effervescence.
We had a Mexican night onboard, enchiladas and rice, and a salt covered boat, just missing the rest of the margarita.
Still searching for champagne.
Cheers, All well onboard, at least another day of bouncing along.
Sailing can be fun and today was one of those days. winds and seas cooperated, and even a milestone was achieved.
Another day without the drone of the engine, and the diesel supply remains intact. We have enough fuel if we need to motor the rest of the way, the gauges read 60%, so in the first 5 days, we only used 30% since we left with about 90% full. The math, or the numbers. We hold 800 liters (210 gallons) of diesel in our main tanks. We would normally fill them and 4 jerry cans for a journey like this. let’s say 900 liters. So since each engine consumes about 3 liters per hour, that would be 300 hours (12.5 days). We left with maybe 600 liters, so 200 hours (8.3 days), the journey was starting to look like 10 days or more. Thus the concern, being able to sail for the past 2 days has eased the mathematically minded.
Now back to the specular day.. nice sun, nice breeze, forecast looks good for the rest of the day, and a questionable wind shift materializing with rain a day ahead. That ain’t gonna stop an equator crossing!
Christine was the most productive, our stalk of bananas was quickly becoming too many ripe bananas to swallow. Froze a few (er 20), smashed another 10 and she baked banana muffins, and since the oven was hot she also baked cookies. All this before the equator even suspected we were coming.
Wanting to be the first to spot the equator.. or just relaxing from a busy day. Or waiting on the champagne celebration
I think we surprised the middle of the marble. We had been climbing up from the south quietly but speedy. We had good wind and made better progress and crossed in the daylight hours. Expected a red carpet affair watching the “S” fall over and become a “N” on the GPS. Poof, just like that the toilets flushed the other way around. No carpet, no fan fare, and didn’t even spot the pink tape holding the 2 halves of the globe together.
Shellbacks, pollywogs is what you become for crossing the equator. I was so excited, I was going to order one of those trendy “Sail Naked” t-shirts to mark this occasion but then figured a T-shirt would defeat the purpose of the message.
Cajun pasta from our passage meal collection, with the obligatory copious amount of cookies for desert.
The wind shift started, we are no longer able to make our point of sail, off by 10-15 degrees, so all that easting we did is dwindling rapidly. There are still 400 miles to go, so fingers crossed for a little shaft back in our favor. The forecast doesn’t support it, but you have to think it will happen! All is well on board and with the universe.
Just the sound of water rushing behind the boat.. The iron sails are getting a much deserved vacation.
The sound is amazing
Raised the mainsail just before dark last night in hopes the wind would fill in. Of course it waited till morning. Was still a bit flukey over night into the wee hours of sunrise.
Stabilized with 8-9 knots which happily pushes us along quite nicely. And the sound is amazing. Just a little U2 on the stereo while the wake tries to catch the boat.
It only took 120+ hours to get going. Sadly the forecast won’t hold this for very long and we’ll be back into the sweltering heat but we’ll take what we can get.
Happy Friday
Passed 1/2 way, 620 miles left its all down hill from here? Or is it..the swell goes down and UP.. and we are heading towards the earths belt that holds the middle in, so will the down actually hill start after the middle section? Guess we’ll find out soon.
