Wednesday evening/night Wind and seas a lot calmer, a lovely clear sky with bright moon and stars - very pleasant end to a great day - a relief to have rounded the two Capes in good wind finally - next Cape to pass is Leeuwin, in S.W. Australia, several weeks away.
Was great to enjoy celebrating the Great Cape rounding with friends in B.C. and elsewhere - thanks for joining me!
Thursday Wind slowly died down overnight and by morning was very, very light - boat speed at dawn was close to 5 kt but dropped rapidly very soon after.
Awake a lot overnight, so slept on this morning.
Midday Clear blue sky and still very little wind, so not much boat speed... Only making just over 2kt... According to weather files, we have 16kt of wind - but I think it's actually more like 8kt! The High pressure to the N of us has clearly spread down further to give this light wind. It's very peaceful, but it's also frustrating to be moving so slowly. Temperature is well up under the clear sky and hot sun - it feels like summer today!
Have been clearing up and replenishing in galley - cereal and dried milk powder needed topping up and I found some overlooked tomatoes and blueberries - had a mess to clear up!
Had hoped to turn my attention to the mainsail while seas are reasonably calm - tomorrow, hopefully. I want to measure along the length of the torn sail to check that the material I have will be enough. I can do some preparatory work on it down below once I have certain measurements. Seas aren't too bad just now, although occasionally a bigger set appears and we start rolling around a lot for a time.
7:30pm Sunset was at 6:35pm - blaze of orange against the clear blue sky. We're nearly into the next time zone (marker is 22*30'E)- which will put us into the Central African Time of GMT + 2 hr
With the day having been so clear and warm, there's a heavy dew - I went to adjust Fred, having gybed around earlier, and found the cockpit dripping wet under a bright moon and a starry sky.
Sea temperature has come down a lot from yesterday's high of over 28C - now around 21C so we're clearly out of the Agulhas current - which has no longer been affecting our course, so my worries about being swept S were needless.
Found a small flying fish dried up on the side deck - must have ended up there when the rough seas of two days ago were washing the decks - had its 'wings' spread still...
1900GMT (=2000LT) - end of Day 134. We made 85 n.ml. DMG over the 24 hr period, measured in a straight line between the two 1900 GMT positions.
Total distance covered from Victoria, B.C., to end of Day 134 (by daily DMGs): 12,608 n.ml.
Distances (at 1900Z): Cape Leeuwin LH (SW Australia): 4230 n.ml. to ENE; SE Cape of Tasmania LH: 4937 n.ml. to ESE; Cape Agulhas LH (S.Africa): 352 n.ml. to N; Cape Town Hbr entrance: 430 n.ml. to N.
Position & weather report, for 1900 GMT, posted to Winlink.org and Shiptrak.org (using my US callsign KC2IOV):
TIME: 2019/02/14 19:00GMT LATITUDE: 40-25.21S LONGITUDE: 022-08.91E COURSE: 085T SPEED: 3.1kt
WIND_SPEED: 8kt WIND_DIR: WNW SWELL_DIR: W SWELL_HT: 2.5m CLOUDS: 0%
BARO: 1014.4hPa TREND: -2 AIR_TEMP: 20.0C SEA_TEMP: 21.0C
COMMENT: Lovely sunny day - but little wind...
