Latitude 10 46.152N ; longitude 41 01.546W Tuesday 13 December 2022, day 12….

We have achieved a mile stone :) and it’s about time! ….. we’re half way across! Of course it’s not that simple, there are several ways to calculate half way? There’s the straight line (rhum line) miles from Cape Verde to our destination; there’s then half the miles we will have travelled by going south then west; there’s half of the great circle route (popular belief the world is round ;) there’s also the number of days at sea, halved. Then of course we have to actually decide on our final destination, Barbados? To complicate further, We’ve also have a discrepancy between our log, the one that measures actual speed and distance through the water, and our GPS system, that measures our speed by global positioning…. The later recording a greater distance on our longitude probably due to the North Equatorial Current helping to take us west And then, we had a problem with the log; when we got to 1000nm, for some reason at 999nm, instead of clicking back to 0, it clicked over to 343? No idea what that meant as we’ve never done 1000nm in one trip before? so we reset it to 0? But, that put it out of sinc with the accumulative total miles? Nightmare! One things for certain we can use a variety of different data….. We (Greg) has calculated all of the above, and we have decided to go with rhum line mileage from Cape Verde to Barbados with only 1/2 of it left to run :) (make sense?) We have crossed that line, So we are declaring ourselves half way! Quicker to go on than go back! Tonight it will be a tot of rum for us and one for Neptune, to acknowledge our safe passage so far. 

Not only that we have good wind NE F4, and are making good boat speed, maintaining over 5+ knots, with 1 reef in main and 2 in genoa, yay! It’s a bit roly, but all in all down wind, comfortable sailing….. it’s about time! We, have thought about the ‘obligatory halfway swim’, but, it’s blowing F4-5, the sea is quite rough, we have no bathing platform on BA and our boarding steps would smash against the hull in these seas, we’ve also just seen a Portuguese Man of War float by….. so…. Maybe not!

Talking about time….. as we head west the sun rises and sun sets are getting later! Sun set is now about 21.00, sunrise was 08.53 GMT this morning. Of course we know that Greenwich meridian is the prime meridian, 0.00 degrees, and all time zones are measured from this point (GMT/ZULU/UTC). We know that for every 15 degrees of longitude west (or east) the time zone alters by an hour, back for west, (forward for east.) By the time we get to the other side, we will be at about 60 degrees west…. So it will be 4 hours behind UK time. The question is how to handle this on board Blue Argolis, as we travel slowly west?

Time zones themselves are a man made construct to make managing work, travel, life, communications easier, they also bend around continents to make it easier for the collective. On cruise/commercial ships clocks are turned backwards to the correct time zone at midnight as the ship cruises west. We know some sailing boats crossing who are also following this strictly and every 15 degrees they are turning their ships clocks back at midnight, some are just putting clocks back when they feel like it. Some crews we’ve spoken to will adjust their watch system, the unlucky watch doing the extra hour, some will not. But really it’s a matter of personal choice. On BA, we have decided that really this has little relevance whilst at sea in a small boat with just 2 crew! So we’re having a different approach, we are leaving the ships clock on GMT! At least this gives us a bearing on what time really is somewhere? And, if we want/need to contact UK we know what time to ring! We quite like the fact that when we start our 4 hour night watches at 19.00 GMT, the first and last watches now have half day light half darkness which aids either staying awake or sleeping. We of course know and accept, that the reality is the rest of the world (except UK) will be in a different time zone to us ….  But, we can worry about that on the other side or see another ship or human! ;)

So, we continue sailing along in our own little bubble, heading towards Barbados, now 1,073 nm away. Last 24 hour run 136nm.

Alpha Whiskey 

Yours aye