Becalmed in
the Doldrums proper
Nine in the
evening was our first lightning, its an eerie business at sea, trees all around
without shelter and not a golfer to
be seen. The whole sky ignites like a flash bulb so bright you can hardly see
the paparazzi, let alone where the fork came down. Somewhere later in the night
the wind went all peculiar for the beginning of the doldrums proper, there had
been a few false alarms but this time it swung all about and rain so bad you
could have been in Gibraltar. We put the motor on at eleven. By one am the log
mileage reading crossed five thousand miles from Ipswich back in England, that’s
a long way in a boat! Oh What a Night! The Bee Gee’s never meant it this way
surely. We turned the motor off a half hour later at one thirty Saturday, sailed
again a little more then by sunrise the autopilot woke us with a failed course
alarm. The wind and speed of boat were both zero, we were bobbing nowhere and
nowhere fast. Six thirty am Saturday morning motor on, half the cutter bang in
the middle of the track and some main to steady, all south. A rough bearing
starboard off the Sao Paulo Rocks a few days ahead and back to bed.
12 utc
position is 03.54.00N 29.03.00W
