Just another thousand miles to go...!
W2N 'Where to Next?'
Rob 'Bee' Clark
Tue 6 Jan 2009 03:55
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9:43.5N 16:54.9W
I set off on Saturday afternoon from Gambia on what
will undoubtedly be the longest leg of the voyage so far. In a straight line, it
would have been nearly 1400Nm but I'll be taking a slightly indirect route so
probably a bit further. Anyway, I'm just three days into a two-week leg and
trying to sneak down the east side of the doldrums without going too close to
the Sierra Leone or Guinea coasts. Looking a the GRIB files before I left, it
seemed that the doldrums are bunched up to the east of the North Atlantic, just
north of the equator. Going west of them would have meant beating back into the
south equatorial current and against the prevailing winds to reach Ascension. By
staying east, I'll get some pretty variable winds (I have already!) but once
south of the doldrums, I should be able to lay Ascension on port tack using the
southeast trades.
The trade-off was that by following the coast, I
would be getting fishing traffic for several days and in that respect, I was
right. Off of the West African coast, there are a combination of huge trawlers
with bright white lights on deck and hundreds of tiny 'Pirogues' that display,
if anything at all, just a vaguely flashing single light of unspecific colour
and of ambiguous visibility. They're everywhere. I'm through them now and
haven't seen anything at all since it started getting dark last night but for a
couple of nights, I was finding it difficult to get any sleep at
all.
So, I'm into the single-figure latitudes which
means I'm just under 600Nm from the equator! Until I pick up the southeast
trades though, I'm not making very fast progress so that's probably a week away.
The champagne is on ice already though! It's pretty lonely out here and I was
sad to leave Lamin Lodge but I've got to press on. I've got some difficult
sailing ahead and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't just a bit apprehensive about
it but the Cape of Good Hope is a significant landmark in the project. From
there, well, Madagascar, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam,
China... I can't wait!
So that's all for now. The wind has died again now
but I had a good run yesterday making well over seven knots for most of the day.
It's a shame that when the wind drops, it seems to drop completely which is
frustrating but I'm making on average about 100Nm a day. That average will
increase once I'm south of the equator but I expect to be in
Ascension in about ten days time.
More in a day or two...
Bee
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