Maurtius to South Africa Day Two -23 10.423S 054 28.584E
Aurora_b
Mike and Liz Downing
Sat 2 Nov 2013 12:34
As I write we have 10 miles to go to leave the tropics and we'll also be leaving the tradewinds behind. From now on the winds will be determined by the highs and lows making their way east round the South African cape. This nice high that we're on at the moment is forecast to move east tomorrow and the winds will switch to the south. The northerly winds we have at the moment are warm and it's been a hot and sunny day. We're expecting the winds from the south to be quite a bit cooler. Magnetic variation is large here. In the UK it's a few degrees West, here it's 24 degrees West, so makes a big difference when looking at the compass or taking bearings. In New Zealand it was something like 24 degrees East so we are used to adding/subtracting big numbers. There's quite a bit of shipping around, more than we thought. There seems to be 3 or 4 ships showing on the AIS all the time. Further south our friends have reported it considerably busier with up to 25 showing on AIS.
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com