Across the Doldrums
Blue Sky's Voyage
George & Michael
Fri 19 Feb 2010 21:48
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Hello Friends
"5:04N
105:40W"
The strong winds blew us into the doldrums
as we expected and we then motored through with no wind, towering grey clouds
and drizzle, much as expected.
Now that we're through to the south of the
ITCZ, there is a fresh southerly wind blowing. Sadly with very little east in
it... We battled our way south-ish during the night though the equatorial
counter-current and short steep seas didn't help us maintain the course we
preferred. It was either pretty much due west (keeping in the adverse current)
or almost south east (not exactly towards the Marquesas).
Fortunately the wind has backed a touch and
we're now maintaining a COG of about 240 which will do just fine. The seas have
settled down somewhat, though could be better, and we expect the seas to improve
further and the winds to back to give us a more comfortable
progress.
We manage to miss most of the squalls, which
are quite unlike the towering thunderheads of Caribbean squalls. These seem just
small clouds, no special height to them, but with plenty of the wet stuff
falling out from under.
And finally. Thanks to the anonymous
Statian* feedback contributor who thinks our towgen
is 'Mickey Mouse'. Since it's simple, inexpensive and easy to deploy then its 10
amps, 24 hours a day appears to us quite satisfactory. In fact we normally use
the smaller turbine blades as they generate quite enough power for our uses.
Thanks Goofy, we all had a good laugh !
That's about it for now. George continues to
entice us with a varied and interesting menu, despite the rough conditions.
Though he has modified some of the menus to allow for the gales: salads are more
of the chunky Greek variety rather than a confection of leaves which get blown
away before they get to your lip.
Best Wishes
George, Michael, Alex and Simon
* 'Statian' = citizen of the United
States, in order to distinguish them from 'Americans" who could obviously be
from anywhere in the Americas.
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