Friday 4th December 09 Grey clouds & tacking still against E winds.
What a beautiful night around midnight ...! Clear sky, Southern Cross above the starboard quarter, Orion high up - on his head, as usual!... and "Nereida" heading NE, straight for an almost-full moon along a broad, moonlit path in the ruffled sea... just fabulous! And to add to my contentment, we were more-or-less headed for our destination - for the time being, at least.
Looking at the weather info, I don't want to get too far S again - W winds might arrive N of 36S Sunday & I'd hate to miss riding them into Cape Town! . Might not happen but I don't want to take the chance! In the meantime, I stayed on starboard tack for nearly a day. It was quite favourable, especially when some rainclouds passed over around dawn & the veered wind convinced me not to tack around then - we were making 070T - direct for Cape Town. Oh, if only that could have continued for a couple of days - I'd be there Sunday!
With the rainclouds, the wind & seas had increased, so I put in the 3rd reef & as I did so, I got caught by some seas washing the decks. No problem - change out of my slightly wet gear - about time, anyway..! But when I went to the aft cabin locker to get some dry clothing - I found it to be soaking wet - from the watermaker brine when it spurted all over the cabin... I hadn't thought to check that locker... probably because most of the gear was safely stowed in plastic bags... but the items I wanted were not.. more washing when I make landfall.... Good thing the rest of the clothing was kept dry by the plastic .... I'm having to wear socks now and warm clothing - a sign of the temperature - air 18C compared with around 30C in the Canaries... and a cool sea temperature of 18C - up from the 15.6C of yesterday, about 70M further S. I'm noticing the chill!
Mostly a grey day today with few birds and the sun struggling to make itself seen.
DMG noon-to-noon: 97M (126M by log)
316M to Cape Town... 93M closer, making an ETA of Monday evening... but I'm hoping for sooner...