There be Southerlies.
Rhapsode
Tue 23 Nov 2010 13:20
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00 58 N 25 51 W
Ahem!
Ahem! A serving of humble pie coming
up...
I failed my Master Boat Chef course last night!
There, I've said it.
My cooking juggling act failed on the last hurdle.
On the menu were rice, sweetcorn and pineapple (try it, it's nice) and fafa...,
flafafeel,,, falalfle..., fluffles. You know what I mean - little round spicy
vegetarian things that need to be deep fried!
All was well until I'd served up the entire meal
and as I passed out the two bowls for the boys up in the cockpit holding on to
the pole for support as I did so we took a big roll and my dinner took to the
air. Unfortunately it didn't stay there and in the next moment it was splattered
all over the cabin floor and worktop.
I was hungry. I ate it!
In my defence we were battling a force 6 with a 3
to 4 metre swell on the beam.
No excuse, I know, but you should have seen my
earlier gyrations round the pole - better than a 70s GoGo dancer any day. Less
clothes on as well, probably. Yup, those shorts again!
You may have been wondering why, if we were going
to Brazil, our daily position reports on the Google Earth map showed us
travelling mostly in a straight line south? Next stop Antarctica.
Paraphrasing early cartographers - there be
Southerlies here. Here being immediately south of the doldrums. They lurk and
they hide. Thye duck and they dive. They would be the very thing for an
illusionist since they often manage to hide themselves from the numerical
weather forecast models. Yes, Mr. Grib, you know who I'm talking about -
promising us easterlies and then giving us Southerlies!
You see the problem is that we need easterlies to
take us directly to Salvador in a nice gentle and relaxed fashion.But since we
know that Southerlies have a nasty habit of turning up to the party instead we
need lots of sea room to the west (still with me?) in case
the Southerlies appear and send us in that direction
instead.
Not only that but some idiot put a rock or two slap
bag in the middle of the ocean - to the west of us. And then added a west-going
current into the equation as well.
So, the end result is that if we didn't allow
ourselves plenty of sea room we could be pushed west at an alarming rate and we
would very likely get too close to the rocks for comfort and then be shoved on
until we were lost in the Amazon rain forest.
Happy sailing!
P, M & A
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