Becalmed in the Southern Ocean...

UHURU
Steve Powell
Fri 7 Jan 2011 19:23
58:13.41S
60:22.18W

.... What’s that all about!!

So after two days of absolutely perfect sailing, 20-30kts NW, just aft of the beam, and moderate seas, we are now becalmed! Winds dropped to 3-4kts. Who’d of thought, never expected this one. So the engine is on and we are motoring along playing Sports Trivia cards.

We did have a taste of the Southern Oceans last night with 5m plus swells coming in from the west, and took a quite a lot of water over the bow as Buzz discovered when his hatch leaked over his bunk. But other than that it was a beautiful night that never really got dark, we had what looked like a permanent dawn on the horizon directly south of us.

All’s well on UHURU, we are expecting the wind to kick in again in the early hours of tomorrow morning and it will be SSW, on the nose, directly up from Antarctica, cold... not so much fun.

If you want to check out where we are click here: http://blog.mailasail.com/uhuru

We have decided to give Elephant Island (of Shackleton fame) a miss. It was always a long shot as it’s a long way east of the Peninsula and only really practical in certain wind conditions. So we are now headed directly for Deception Island, all being well we should be there sometime Sunday morning.

When we get there we may have problems getting a satellite signal as it anchorage is in the middle of the island which is an old volcano. So don’t panic if you don’t hear from us immediately.

All’s well
From

Steve & the crew

7th Jan 2011