Saturday 2:15pm Heaved to after weather warning received - if continued on course, the Low coming by on Tuesday would be right on top of us - with gusts around 45kt expected, so better to keep away.
Decided to wait overnight and see if forecast any better in the morning - really hoping not to have to move SW to keep safe but....
Made a nice curry to compensate for lack of progress - beef and spinach balti with basmati rice... Nice!
Sunday 6:30am Was up just after dawn - a lovely sunny morning. Seas have been well up overnight with the increased wind.
Weather news unchanged - so, regretfully, decided to 'retreat' a distance to the SW. With wind from NW at 24kt couldn't make hoped-for course but making as best as we can - 240T. Will heave to before sunset.
Back to my bunk for more sleep...
11am Sun still shining brightly but becoming overcast, wind increased to ~26kt, definitely feeling warmer. Close-hauled, so fell off the wind very slightly to give better speed - wind has backed a little more to W, althouh still from nearly NW. Seas well up and throwing us around on a regular basis.
Feeling a bit gutted to have to be doing this yet again - I really thought we were finally 'escaping' this region of persistent strong Lows to get to above 40S. I expected to have been making a beeline for Africa soon after rounding Cape Horn - as in my last trip this way, when that took under 4 weeks in total.. We're presently retracing our path from yesterday!
3.30pm Lovely to chat to Uku ('One and All') again - I'd forgotten he has a food problem - he needs to finish before his supplies run out! He had no wind this morning (lowered his main) but has light wind now so slowly sailing. I could only hear Mark ('Maverick') faintly in there but Uku relayed - he had good copy on Mark who is now within 500 miles of Jean-Luc and two days from the Cape Verdes - GO MARK, GO!! He's done amazingly well to make up so much of a deficit before the Horn and has been lucky with conditions in the Doldrums - you never know what you're going to get there!
My vivid memory of heading S through that area just S of the Cape Verdes in 2009 was of lightning bolts falling into the sea around Nereida overnight - not at all pleasant, waiting for us to be struck... (we weren't...TG)!
Photos of Nereida goose-winged and a Peale's dolphin - looks like dolphins seen last week (thanks, aggie!)
1900GMT (=1600LT) - end of Day 95. We made 50 n.ml. DMG over the 24 hr period, measured in a straight line between the two 1900 GMT position. ... but heading backwards...grrr!!!
Total distance covered from Victoria, B.C., to end of Day 95 (by daily DMGs): 9,246 n.ml.
Distances (at 1900Z): Cape Horn LH: 1112 n.ml. to SW; Falklands: 690 n.ml. to SW; Montevideo: 665 n.ml to NW; Buenos Aires: 765 n.ml to NW Cape Agulhas (SA): 3048 n.ml. to NE
Position & weather report for 1900 GMT posted to Winlink.org and Shiptrak.org (using my US callsign KC2IOV):
TIME: 2019/01/06 19:00GMT LATITUDE: 43-03.30S LONGITUDE: 046-10.77W COURSE: 220T SPEED: 4.3kt
WIND_SPEED: 17kt WIND_DIR: NW SWELL_DIR: WNW SWELL_HT: 4.0m CLOUDS: 100%
BARO: 1004.5hPa TREND: -2 AIR_TEMP: 20.0C SEA_TEMP: 16.0C
COMMENT: Heading SW to avoid strong weather on Tuesday...
