Wednesday 7am Seas well up - easily 5m/16ft or more. Being tossed around and heeling a lot, despite well-furled genoa, in 20-25kt wind from SSW - on a beam reach. Slowed down a lot from yesterday - we're no longer sailing downwind. Grey clouds with a patch of blue.
1pm Far fewer clouds and plenty of sunshine. Air feeling a lot colder now - 18C but feels less. Wind now from S. Slowing down with course being upwind now - also makes it difficult to make preferred course and kills speed if too close to the wind.
Feeling tired - keep not sleeping well nor enough - probably due to worry about generally slow progress likely, with High pressure ahead, jobs in hand and time getting on.... Will try to get a nap now while things relatively calm - getting quite used to being frequently tossed around and bunk is soft and secure...!
5:30pm Having a nice hot mug of soup as I write this in my bunk - we're well-heeled over. Air has been definitely cooler, the last few days.
A lot of time spent studying weather today - as every day... Outlook not looking too bad in that we should keep tailwinds, rather than headwinds, in the High coming up, due to being close to 42S. Have been trying to head slightly more S, although difficult with S wind, of course, but not looking so essential now, although being a little further S would be good.
Have been a lot slower than yesterday, with mostly upwind sailing and well-reefed genoa in strong wind but wind seems to be easing now so just unfurled most of genoa - our speed shot up! Think I was being over-cautious earlier - pity!
Occasional sunshine among mix of grey and white clouds over the day.
Nice to see the usual 'gang' of birds around most of today- small group of white-chinned petrels, occasional storm petrel and a Wandering albatross at times, also.
Seas very big still but more spaced apart so we're being less frequently tossed about.
Time to think about food - sun is beginning to get low already. Simple menu... Wild salmon with touch of mayonnaise and some sweetcorn - no cooking tonight. Bon appetit!
8:40pm Things have definitely calmed down a lot now - seas are still big but quite benign and wind is a lot less - we're making just 3.5-4.5kt, occasionally 5kt, with almost full genoa - will unfurl that last bit before taking to my bunk for sleep.
I think part of the reason for feeling so often tired is I'm not keeping to local time for sleep hours during hours of darkness - so I'm simply not getting enough hours of sleep.
Just connected in to Cape Town Winlink shore station - nearly up to date with emails now.
11pm Wind keeps gusting up and then dying down - a bad sign! Speed jumps up to 4-5kt and then drops to under 2kt.
1900GMT (=2300LT) - end of Day 161. We made 108 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 161 (by daily DMGs):14,470 n.ml.
Distances (at 1900GMT): Cape Leeuwin LH (SW Australia): 2581 n.ml. to ENE; Melbourne (VIC, Aus): 3711 n.ml. to E; SE Cape of Tasmania LH: 3628 n.ml. to ESE; Cape Agulhas LH (S.Africa): 1926 n.ml. to WNW; Kerguelen Isl: 552 n.ml. to SE; St Paul Isl: 806 n.ml.to ENE; Halfway point (55 18'E): 228 n.ml. astern!
Position & weather report, for 1900 GMT, posted to www.Winlink.org and www.Shiptrak.org (using my US callsign KC2IOV):
TIME: 2019/03/14 19:00GMT LATITUDE: 41-49.30S LONGITUDE: 060-20.82E COURSE: 112T SPEED: 3.5kt
WIND_SPEED: 12kt WIND_DIR: S SWELL_DIR: S SWELL_HT: 5.0m CLOUDS: 95%
BARO: 1027hPa TREND: 2 AIR_TEMP: 14.0C SEA_TEMP: 20.0C
COMMENT: Wind far less, seas gentler but still big