WHEN: Saturday April 2nd 2000Local / 2200EST / 2300BRZ / 0200UTC
WHERE: 11:57N 116:40W
MILEAGE: 867 miles since La Cruz (sailed), 1,882 miles to Nuku Hiva (straight line)
The Trade Winds receded substantially today, its limit reaching within a couple dozen miles from where we were. It felt like a door was slam shut right behind our backs! We managed to stay within the Trades thanks mostly to our Spinnaker, which enabled us to gain a lot of miles over 72 hours. Today it was time to bring it down in anticipation of fresher winds, and also to enable us to turn more to the South and start our descent to the Equator. The third step of our passage is likely to start some time next week … But we will talk about it in due time.
The highlight of the day was definitely the maneuver I mentioned above. It took us a good two hours to bring the Spinnaker down, lower the Starboard Pole, pass the main to Starboard and set its preventer, set the Port pole, and unfurl the heavy genoa to Port, on a wing-on-wing configuration. Dousing the Spinnaker, in particular, was a handful. The winds were up at 20 knots when we did it, and my weight was not enough to convince that huge sail to come down. And when it did, it wrapped around the forestay. A mess.
But everything is tidied up now, the sun has just set on a majestic show, and we are preparing for our sixth night at sea.
Speaking of sunset, all the West we gained the last few days is very noticeable already, with the sun rising and setting over 1 hour “later”. And the lower latitudes are also making themselves known, with temperatures significantly higher both during the day and night.
That’s it for today. All is good onboard.
Have a great evening!
Pesto out.
Keep the faith. We are still cheering you on. In about an hour we will be bringing up our anchor and setting sail back to La Cruz for a couple of days before we head over to La Paz. Hugs