Across the Equator!
|
0:36.7S 13:44.2W
When
everything’s going well; a steady 15 – 18 knot breeze blowing roughly from the
right direction and I’ve remembered to charge the battery on the MP3 player, I
can normally be found relaxing on the leeward cockpit seat facing aft amongst a
pile of cushions. Generally, I’ve got a bottle of water within reach and almost
certainly, I’ll be reading a book, struggling with a crossword puzzle or writing
some instantly forgettable old toot hoping you’ll read it out of obligatory
politeness. Well, after the last despairing message I posted to the blog, you
might be surprised to know that today, all day, I’ve been enjoying one of those
occasions when everything is under control, I’m pointing in roughly the right
direction and I’m making a respectable speed. In fact, today, as I write, next
to the bottle of water lies an empty bottle of Veuve Hennerick
Champagne but I’ll tell you about that in a bit… At 1118hrs
this morning, Canasta and I crossed
‘the line’ and sailed into the southern hemisphere – into the next chapter of my
little adventure and into the illusive wind shift I’d been waiting for since,
well, forever it seems. Thus another significant milestone in the W2N voyage has
been notched up and marks a first for me and for Canasta.
It was a
thoroughly unpleasant couple of days and sleepless nights typified by periods of
about two or three hours without a breath of wind followed by the appearance of
a towering black cumulonimbus cloud, squalls of up to 35 knots, huge wind
shifts, torrential rain and lightning. Then, as quickly as each little weather
system had arrived, it would move on to leave another desperately windless
couple of hours before the next miserable ordeal started again. This went on all
through Thursday night, all day Friday, Friday night and most of Saturday. By
the afternoon though, it had settled down slightly although a few threatening
clouds drifted by relatively harmlessly. My arms ached from the constant
reefing, trimming, furling, winching and I’d had very little sleep in two
nights. I’d not seen land for over a week and although the doldrums are most
noted for their characteristic lack of wind, nothing could have prepared me for
the severity of the squalls. On Sunday, mercifully, the squalls stopped
completely although what little wind remained was still blowing from the
southwest and not southeast as I’d hoped – as had been forecast. I motored all
day through constant drizzle under a turbulent sky the colour of slate hoping
that Monday, today, and the symbolic crossing of the equator would indulge me
with better weather. Well, no
sooner had Neptune heard the cork pop from the bottle, he sensibly summoned blue
skies, a token shift in the wind and promised a day of uninterrupted sailing to
welcome me into the southern hemisphere. Knowing that to drink the entire bottle
would have either disastrous or hilarious results to which only I would bear
witness, I shook the bottle like a winning F1 driver or a returning hero and
sprayed it liberally over the side for Neptune as, I believe, is customary. I
savoured the last three or four mouthfuls though and thanked him with all
sincerity for putting a stop to that ridiculous nonsense that I was watching
sink below the horizon in my wake; the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone… the
Doldrums. Well, the sun
has just set; my first southern hemisphere sunset in fact. Just as it was my
first southern hemisphere Blue Dragon
Thai Green Curry Soup for dinner! I’d been saving a Fray Bentos Steak and Kidney Pie for
just such an occasion but I’m having to ration the cooking gas so I opted not to
light the oven. Still, if you’ve never had a Blue Dragon soup, you really should try
it! Anyway, back to the sailing… I’ve covered 1082Nm since leaving
That’s all
from me then for now. So, from down here in this half of the world… more
later. Bee |