St. Helena to the Caribbean - Day 10
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Tue 22 Jan 2013 13:40
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01:58.836S 27:28.146W
January 22, 2013
On a slow boat to the equator.
At least we aren't headed to China.
Our pace has slowed to 5 or 6 knots as the last of the
southeast trades puff behind us at 9-13 knots. It's slow, but not
unbearable, and still better than listening to the engine drone on while it
sucks up gallons of diesel. The sea is nearly flat, which is good
because there will be a fair amount of cooking going on over the next few days
as the last of the meat pile slowly defrosts in the fickle
(and non-functioning) freezer. Our red meat intake will spike,
quashing all likelihood of an anemia outbreak. All good
except we have no way to counteract the ill effects on our arteries
with the appropriate intake of red wine. Not that we don't have
plenty of good South African red wine aboard, just that we practice
teetotalism while on passage. We'll have to make up for it upon
arrival. This is not expected to be a problem.
In other news, fishing has been suspended until further notice
given the lack of frozen food storage space.
Also, it's hot. Not Thailand or Malaysia hot, but normal
equator hot, which is hot enough. You might have noticed that if we're not
busy moaning about the cold, then we're whining about the hot. Our
temperature range tolerance continues to narrow as our time in the tropics
increases. After almost six years, we're happy in 78 - 85F and
anything outside that range warrants some degree of complaint.
The one excellent thing about sailing so near the equator
is clothing becomes more and more optional, which saves on laundry.
Although, even without the excuse of the hot weather, we've been doing our best
to save on laundry by wearing the same pair of shorts every day (and
night). To clarify, what I mean is we each wear our own
pair of shorts (not that we wear the same shorts at the same time - that would
be too difficult, but would save on laundry). We like it when there's no
one else to impress other than each other. This way no one minds when the
jean shorts with the two giant holes in the back that look like huge upside-down
eyebrows under each pocket are worn day in and day out.
Day 10's progress report: 140 miles.
Estimated time of equator crossing: Thursday
morning.
10 days down, 13-ish to go.
Anne
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