Day 14: Sailing slow in the Doldrums

We are now in the middle of where the Doldrums live, but so far we have been sailing in a light breeze (7-8 knots) which is pushing us along on a close reach at around 5 knots. Beautiful blue skies with a few tradewind cumulus here and there. This trip has so far delivered some of the best sailing I have done in my life!

The Infrared satellite image of the pacific I downloaded at noon is showing some convention west of 129W and south of 4N. So we are staying at 128W and sailing dead south to avoid this. The GRIBs are still showing light winds all the way to the equator, hope they are right!

We have had clear skies the last couple of nights and the stars have been amazing! There is zero light pollution here, so you can actually see more stars all over the dark sky around the bright stars we normally see on land. It’s like a sky full of diamonds, wish I could take a photograph to post on the blog..

We took the second shower of the passage today, using a solar shower at the mast.. the biggest bathroom in the world! Glenda said it felt like a million bucks, and she wasn’t exaggerating, it really did. Ok, money has no value over here in the middle of the pacific..

Made 24 pancakes for lunch today! ok, we are fat ba*st*rds, but not that fat. Extras for snack time on the night watches. Cyrille is preparing the Mahi mahi we caught yesterday with a piccata sauce and mashed potatoes for dinner.. yum yum, can’t wait.

Alas, no fishy today and even worse we lost our favourite mahi mahi lure 🙁

All is well and enjoying the pacifying pacific..

[Post by HF radio email]