Day 80 Digesting the ‘elephant’ 20/11/13

Position:  42.58 S, 141.58 E

Now that I’ve ’rounded’ two of the five great capes, it’s time to focus on the next three. The next two are Cape Leeuwin off Australia’s south west tip and the Cape of Good Hope off the southern tip of Africa. I will pass many hundreds of miles south and not ’round ‘ them as I did the first two. The last of the great capes is Cape Horn off the southern tip of South America which I most certainly will be ’rounding’. I was trying to put the distances in some sort of perspective this afternoon. The Cape Leeuwin way point on the GPS is set at Lat. 42 degrees 30 minutes South and Long 115 degrees East. This is just an arbitrary point between 42 S and 45 S on 115 East longitude so I have some point of reference. My plan is to sail between 42 and 45 South, where the wind is most suitable for a west about circumnavigation.

My average daily distance covered over these last 9,513 miles is 121 nm per day. The distance to Cape Leeuwin way point is 1231 nm so I should be there in roughly twelve days, December 2nd. The Cape of Good Hope is 5391 nm off to the west so I should be there in 54 days January 12th. Cape Horn is about 4000 nm past that, so I should be there by the end of February. These are just guidelines of course, but it allows me to break the elephant into bite size pieces which psychologically is a lot easier to digest. On a new chart and started reading Mutiny On The Bounty by John Boyne so far very captivating. 

All is well, had a good night’s sleep.  Any ideas about power conservation greatly appreciated. I appreciate the awesome support.

Course 290 T Speed 5.3 kts wind SE 10 Waves SE 1.5 m Cloud 95% Temp 10 C Baro 1018