south of Hilo. Day's run 127 miles.
It has been generally pleasant sailing for the past twenty four hours.
The reefs have gone in and out with the squalls as we sail along on a
close reach, but the weather has started to become more stable and for the
past six hours we've been living with a full main and jib in about nine
knots of breeze. The only problem is the wind direction - northeast.
This band of northeasterles was forecast, but come on, we are in the
middle of the southeast trade wind belt. It isn't right! The winds have
forced us to head west of north and we are giving up our hard earned
easting. We will have to make it up as we get closer to the equator where
the wind is forecast to clock around to the southeast again.
Tony had a sooty tern that was determined to land on the wind generator
during his evening watch. He didn't want to see it get hurt so he stood
on the stern shooing it away. He even knocked the bird away with his hand
at one point, but it didn't give up. It must have been pretty tired. The
bird finally succeeded in flying into the spinning blades from which it
didn't survive. Bummer.
I glanced up during my early morning watch to see the light of the moon
silhouetting a small cloud in the east. Wait a minute, the moon had just
set in the west. As I was coming to that realization, the last bits of a
shooting star appeared from behind the cloud and died out. That was a
bright one.
The sun is now at about 14 degrees south and as we speed away to the north
the days are getting shorter. At the beginning of the passage I would see
the glow of dawn before 4AM, but now I'm not seeing it until after 430.
Both days and nights are cooler now too. It's getting a lot easier to
sleep below on the off watch.
No comments:
Post a Comment