Flying along!
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Sun 17 Jul 2011 14:52
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Sunday 17 July 1430 UTC 1630 Local
Time
Last night we flirted with the edge of the Agulhas
current and between the 100 and 200m contours we kept up high speeds in light
airs.
This morning as forecast 20 - 25 knot winds arrived
from behind us building up from 12knots. So I got the whole main all the way out
on the preventer and poled out the full genoa to windward and flew the jib to
leeward, creating again for the first time in many months the downwind "white
out" sail plan we used so much for sailing deep downwind. This incidentally was
not a sail plan I was at all familiar with before setting of on our
circumnavigation.
In clear blue skies it was fantastic sailing and I
steered a course to divorce ourselves from the current and sail closer to shore
on the continental shelf some 6 miles or so from the land. We have spent almost
all day and most of last night above 10 knots and at 1300 today we had covered
285 miles since 0700 on Saturday!
At this time of year one of the greatest migrations
of biomass on the planet (in addition to the Chinese at new year and the
Widebeest on the Serengeti) takes place along the south eastern shores of South
Africa. That is the great sardine run. Following this huge biomass food source
are the Humpback whales that we saw so many of in Tonga at close quarters. As
soon as we left Durban the familiar spouts could be seen and we have seen them
another couple of times too. Spouting and bursting the surface, presumably
feeding but this time in the distance.
Fingers are currently crossed for nothing to go
wrong as we intend to keep on sailing through the night right past Port
Elizabeth which we were planning to reach tomorrow sometime but is currently
only 66 miles away. We will therefor plan to keep going to Mossel Bay which is
240 miles away and possibly put in there tomorrow night. It depends on the
weather and how we make progress in the lighter headwinds which we expect later
tonight.
The whole passage from Durban to Capetown marina to
marina is 800 nautical miles .... you know what I am thinking
................
I am enjoying reading at the moment and having just
finished Nelson Mandela - Conversations with Myself I am now, keeping up the
South African theme, reading My Experiments with Truth by Mohandas (Mahatma)
Ghandi. Enlightening during a dark nightwatch. My reading list has been long and
heavy for the most part but over the past while I have been able to create time
for reading which is very enjoyable. I must keep a list of what I have read but
I won't bore you with the list - you just would not believe some of
it!
Time for me like Rhiann Marie is flying....
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