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Days 16 to 20
Days 16 to 20: Over half way
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Day 16: OVER half way!5 April 2003 - It was a rocky and rolly night. The wind was a consistent 25-30 knots from the NE with some even stronger gusts. We had only our little storm staysail up. It kept us moving along smoothly and we were not overpowered. That part was great. There was about a 12-foot swell that was not at all dangerous (the boat was very content), but it was like trying to walk around in a fun house. The night was also littered with rain squalls. We are in the thick of it now. There is supposed to be convection (rain storms) from 10 N down to 05 N. We are at latitude 09 N right now. No lightening still (knock on wood!). The place we are looking forward to getting to now is past the ITCZ (Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone), the place where the NE trade winds meet the SE trade winds. It is typically calm there (the Doldrums of old sailing poetry and sea shanties) and we may have to motor a bit to get through it. But once we do, yahoo! Then we will have winds from the SE and finally have clear skies again! For now, we have 101% cloud cover and off and ON rain. We are generally staying down inside the boat and just popping up out of the gopher hole to see if we can see our shadow or other boats. At night we do the same, but use our radar to look for boats. While it is nice and cozy, we are looking forward to reclaiming our cockpit! It is sure fun to be outside!! :) We are officially over half way now!!! 54% of the way there! Yahoo!!!
5 April @ 16:00 GMT |
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Day 17: Nearing sunshine?6 April 2003 - Last night was a very sloppy ride. We are making a transition from starboard tack life to port tack life as the winds begin to move around more to the east. The seas seem to be coming from any direction they choose. We are in that confused area where north meets south and the weather can't decide what to do. For another night, we had only the staysail up. There were several squalls that came through. Worse, though, were the random rogue waves that surprised us from a variety of directions. They arrived sounding like a freight train (that you only had a 3 second warning of) and then smacked into the side of the boat, heeling us way over. Most of the seas were still coming from behind us, but these larger waves from the side were the eye openers. One hit us in the middle of the night and really knocked us over. Three consecutive strong wind puffs were followed by a large, fast-moving, breaking wave that hit our port beam. The force of it sent a bookshelf full of books (paperback thankfully) flying across the boat onto Eric's bunk (while he was in it!). Fortunately, the sound of the wave approaching alerted him enough to be on the lookout! The stern anchor had been pushed askew by this wave... we must have been heeled over quite a bit for the stern pulpit to hit the water! :) Thankfully, the wind has veered today to be almost straight out of the east. We are now beam-reaching to the south, but the waves are still primarily from the NE. This proves to be fast as we can beam reach but still surf with the waves. Very fun! It is still rainy and grey, but we can see tiny little breaks in the clouds. We're looking forward to sailing through the ITCZ and breaking out into the SE Trades in the next couple days. We hear from "Evolution" (a boat in front of us by a few days) that the weather ahead consists of nice winds and sunny, clear skies. Sounds pretty good to us!!! :)
6 April @ 16:00 GMT |
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Day 18: Rain shower showers!7 April 2003 - Everything seems to be pointing to the fact that we are nearing the southern edge of the ITCZ. The wind has kept its eastern component, but once this afternoon it filled in a bit from the east-SOUTH-east!!! That only lasted for about 30 minutes, but was a new one for us! We are looking forward to breaking out into the southeast Trades soon! The seas have calmed down now, but are still VERY confused! We have seas coming at us from literally EVERY direction! The wind has died down as well. We have had about 10-15 knots throughout the day. The sky is starting to show some bits of blue. We are now down to about 85% cloud cover and quickly improving! The rain and wind squalls have abated. (We don't miss them!) We did have one little rain shower this afternoon. With our newfound patches of blue sky, the temperature is getting hotter, so we didn't mind at all! Actually, there wasn't much wind associated with it, so we were able to leave the sails alone and take the opportunity to shower off. There is nothing as refreshing as a rain shower shower!!! VERY FUN! As soon as we saw the rain coming, we grabbed the soap and took advantage of the first few drops to QUICKLY soap up. You don't know how long the rain will last! Then we let the rain wash us clean. Just about the time we were 60% soap-free, we thought that the rain was going to die. It did for a second and we laughed at our predicament. But then it (thankfully) filled back in and de-soaped us! :) We are hoping to cross the equator sometime around Thursday evening. This prediction, of course, makes the huge assumption that the weather will hold out nicely for us to continue sailing at a reasonable speed! Cross your fingers! :)
7 April @ 16:00 GMT |
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Day 19: Let there be light!8 April 2003 - We are finally out of the clouds! We believe that we made it through the ITCZ this morning. The winds began springing up more from the southeast and the clouds began to disappear! When we looked back on where we came
Our winds were almost directly out of the south for much of the day. The weather forecast is for this to improve (i.e. be more from the SE) as we move further south. Unfortunately, this means that our equator crossing (which we are both looking forward to - Eric primarily because we are going to make his favorite cake [sour cream coffee cake]!) is likely to be delayed. The track we are on due to these winds is pushing us as far west as south, so we have a further distance to go to get down to 0 degrees. Oh well, we're still making okay time. AND we made it through the infamous Doldrums without having to motor at all! You can't ask for more than that! Yahoo! Now that we're (theoretically) out of the lighter winds, we should see more consistent Trade winds again. So far today, though from a funky angle, that has been true. While we're not exactly on our planned course (are you ever really?), we are moving along in a comfortable see at a comfortable pace (around 5.5 to 6 knots). No complaints here! After the sloppy seas that we just left behind, this feels super. The boat is moving along steadily and it feels as if we are on a sleigh ride. Smooth, slow and rhythmic bobbing up and down. It is actually kind of relaxing as you fall asleep. WHICH, I (Ang) think I will do now... my watch is just about over! Eric's turn to wake up... (Imagine: A month where you are never able to sleep for more than 2.5 hours at a time before having to stay up and be quasi-alert for 3 hours! We're really used to it now, but I bet we'll sleep like fools when we arrive in the Marquesas!!!)
8 April @ 16:00 GMT |
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Day 20: Winds from the south?9 April 2003 - Okay... when I read the travel brochure for this trip, I am pretty sure it said southEAST winds! What a rip-off! :) We are beating into oh-so-light south winds that have plagued us since yesterday morning. It is a beautiful, light but consistent, breeze and if only it were from the SE, it would be perfect! We are making our way WSW, not laying the islands yet. We are hoping that since we can still move a LITTLE bit south and since we crossed the ITCZ relatively far east, we have some room to move west and work our way slowly south into the more respectable regions of the SE Trades. The sky and water were picture-perfect again today. It is a totally different world south the cloudy belt of the ITCZ. We are in awe of the comfort of the ocean here. The swell is so perfectly spaced that
We are getting totally excited to cross the equator - which, because of these south winds, keeps getting further away. The tack we are on (beating into the wind) keeps getting progressively further west than south. Ugh. We are really looking forward to that landmark. We'll still have a week or so to go, but it will be a fun achievement. We've got to get there soon... Our pet crab & lamb (stuffed animals) are revolting! They're in a funk I think. They aren't speaking to each other. And the crab isn't speaking to ANYONE. He is already holding his little triton (made of aluminum foil - part of his King Neptune costume for crossing the equator!) and dangling on our last jicama (which is tied up to & dangling from our bookshelf)... quite a funny sight, really!!! :) The going is slow, but we are getting closer every day! :)
9 April @ 16:00 GMT |
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© 2002 Eric & Angela Siegel, OurDotCom
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