The trade is collapsing? This is an older blogg that should have been posted 5 days before
Salsa af Stavsnas
Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde
Wed 29 May 2013 21:17
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The big question now among the boats scattered in
the south pacific, on wensday it looks like the trade wind is loosing power.
What happens after that? Is it picking up again? When we are sailing on these
long stretches we are dependent on the wind, there is no way we can motor to the
destination. So we hope we don't end up sitting here for a week or so waiting
for the wind.
Right now the wind has veered to ESE so it is hard
for us to keep sailing along tha 5th lattitude, we are doing a southerly
progress as well.
we will see what descition we take when Ellinor
wakes up. Right now it is 8.45 in the morning, the sun is up again. The night
has been quite good, we put comfort before speed so we have sailed at about 5-6
knots but we have been able to sleep in shifts and the one on watch could take
the 20 minute naps. How does it work? The mathematics is that if a boat should
show up on the horizon it takes 20 minutes before we are on collision, so you
can sleep 20 minutes and then look around the horizon, drop down sleep again (we
have an alarm that goes on every 20 minutes). Now there are extra security
measures here, we have radar, and that can "see" 48nM ahead of us, meaning that
we can see beyond the horizon. We also have AIS that can see 60-100 nM ahead if
a ship is closing in. The only backdraw to AIS is that very few fishing boats
have them. The hard part is to stay alert since we have not seen any boats since
we left Galapagos, not even on AIS or Radar.
The kids came up this morning with the sun, and
they smile like the sun at you. They are growing, today they made
their breakfast all by themselves.
Yesterday we had the 5 day celebration. A very
nice part is to be on aft deck and get loads of salt water poured over you, then
end the session with a fresh water shower, move up to the bow, sit nude with a
"drink" and watch the sun reflecting in the ocean. Flyfish fly in all directions
as Salsa plows her bow into the waves.Pacific soup with fresh bread, butter and
cheese, as a desert fruit salad made on pa
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