20:42N 21:47W Sailing south, ‘down hill ’
S/V Blue Argolis
Greg and Sue Hill
Mon 21 Nov 2022 11:44
When I was a young nurse back in the 80’s we used to do a week of nights, 7, 12 hour night shifts in a row. The 4th or middle night was called ‘hump night’ (keep it clean, this was the 80’s remember!). The reason for this was once you had got over the hump, it was down hill to the end of your stretch and your time off! We feel that we are now over ‘the hump’ with this passage, we have sailed over 563 nm, we have less than 300nm to go, we have just done our 4th 12 hours of darkness at sea since leaving south Tenerife, so….. it’s down hill from here….. we hope?
Down hill and south…. Hopefully to sunnier and better weather? We have had 30 knots± of wind for over 24 hours now, great for the wind turbine, the sun pops in and out from behind clouds, keeping the temperature down, but also shading the solar panels, not so great ….. we could do with a little more sun! And a little less wind and a little less sea would be nice, but then we are making great boat speed :) can’t have it all, daily runs of over 140nm are fab too…. If, and it’s a big if, this continues we might make land fall Wednesday???
And we’re coping well, haven’t had to altered the sail plan for 24 hours, in fact neither of us left the cockpit yesterday at all. Greg even shaved and braved a shower yesterday, although how he managed it I have no idea? I ‘ablut’ in 3 separate stages, top middle and bottom, using the old boarding school 2 flannel regime, and as I sit on the heads (loo) I’m thinking ‘brace, brace, brace,’ as the waves rolled under the boat. But, the impact on morale of brushing you hair and washing your face is instant :).. Today I also decided that I needed perfume in my life….. I bet I have the only life jacket smelling of Coco Chanel in this part of the ocean. It’s amazing how humans adapt to their environments and how quickly things become the norm …… but it’s essential to keep a sense of humour.
Talking of south, This is the furthest south we have ever sailed Blue Argolis, indeed it is the furthest south I have ever sailed or been on the globe. It’s a different story for Greg who has of course done an Atlantic crossing before and served in the Falklands, that was a long time ago though so it feels really new and exciting for both of us…. Really looking forward to seeing land and Cape Verde.
Greg and Sue xx
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