Saturday 7th May 2011 - Rough seas continue with strong winds from ESE
Wind got up to 27kt at 3.30am ... then finally down to 19kt in a long lull at 5.30am.. rough seas .... back to my bunk for some sleep...
9am
Lovely bright sunshine, with lots of broken white cloud. ... and plenty of birds, as yesterday - but many more! Including the inquisitive, immature black-browed albatross, with grey 'collar' and dark tip to bill, seen two days ago. Along with the pair of adults, that makes three soaring around majestically, among all the other birds close by...!
Close-hauled in ESE true wind of 23 kt, dropping to 20 kt every now and then. We're banging often into the frequent, big (4m, 4 sec) seas - so not a very comfortable ride! Seas crashing regularly over the decks ...
We're not having much choice of course - can't do much better than what we're making now - varies a bit due to the wind swinging around somewhat and the seas often knocking us off course, but we're averaging 035T which is OK. Hoping the Low will eventually allow us to head towards Cape Town before we get too far N - otherwise we'll have to heave to and wait it out...
1400 GMT report:
LAT: 35-43S LONG: 011-25E COURSE: 030T SPEED: 5.7
WIND_SPEED: 24 WIND_DIR: ESE SWELL_DIR: ESE SWELL_HT: 4.0M SWELL_PER: 4
CLOUDS: 100% BARO: 1029 TREND: -1
24hr DMG: 107 n.ml. Direct distance to Cape Town: 363 n.ml. ETA 10/11th May.
Evening:
Not much change from earlier - we're still banging into the seas, close-hauled, making 030T at around 5 knots and getting tossed around a lot... makes for slow speed but so far wind strength not too bad... around 20-23 kt, dropping to 16-18 kt from time to time... Expect conditions to worsen overnight and during tomorrow, before easing slowly overnight Sun/Mon.