Hi all,

We are now well into our 3rd 24 hour period having left Ascension last Wednesday morning. We have enjoyed good SE trade winds from the time we left Ascension. The winds are only now beginning to weaken, but will hopefully continue to push us up to and maybe slightly beyond the equator before they die and we arrive in the doldrums, or the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) as this area is now called.

The incidence of heavy, rain laden clouds is increasing, but luckily these have not as yet been accompanied by the sudden strong wind gusts and lightning activity usually associated with them. We will sure enough be dealing with these soon enough once we get into the ITCZ proper.

We should cross the equator by noon on Saturday. This will be Galatea's 4th equator crossing and will be in sync with our odd-year, crossing  pattern - 2011, 13, 15 and now again in 2017. At the equator we will have come north by 34 degrees and about 3000 miles from Cape Town, and will have another 35 or so to go to reach Gibraltar. So in one sense we will be roughly half way through our northward journey. However the distance we will be sailing in the second half will be a lot longer given the need for us to tack (zigzag) into the NE trade winds prevailing north of the equator.

That's it for now.

Neil, Kevin and Scott

- S/V Galatea