The deep blue sea

Day 2 Tuesday, November 29, 2016 11:00 am local time

Lat. 38′ 51.5 S, Long 179′ 27.2 E Course: 111 True  Speed: 3 knots Wind: NW 10 knots Waves: SW 3 metres  Cloud: 1%  Baro: 1011 rising

Range to Cape Horn: 4611 nautical miles  Distance in last 24hrs: 61 nm to CP 75 over the ground

We are definitely in the deep blue sea. We have a blue cloudless sky above. The sun is winking like diamonds from the ruffled waves made by the light westerly breeze over the strong swells coming up from the Great Southern Ocean. Earlier, while on deck, a small whale passed just astern of us traveling lazily North. Last night while on deck in the dark, I turned my head light over the side into the deep only to see lots of red eyes winking at me as we sailed through thousands of organisms. Perkins is still droning away at 600 rpm. I’m used to the noise and the steady 3.5 knots which  I suppose is a fair trade. Better than no sails up and wallowing in the big seas waiting for enough wind to fill in.

The weather forecast which I receive from my brother-in-law Peter Campbell in snowy Regina, has the wind filling in at 10-15 knots later this afternoon. As the wind fills in, I’ll head southeast in the hopes of something more steady and stronger, but for the moment all is well and we are doing the best we can with what we have.  I plan to get out the fishing gear, see if we can put something fresh on the table. If the past is any indication I most certainly need a lot more practice.

We’ll reach a navigational milestone within the next 24 hours. We’ll be crossing the International Dateline (in yellow). That means we’ll get another Tuesday and our longitude will be west of Greenwich instead of east. At the moment we have about 30 miles to go, and at our present speed, that should take place around midnight tonight.

I’ve started my onboard ‘Yoga at Sea’ class with stretches and deep knee bends, just enough to get the heart rate up a bit and pump some blood into the old joints and clear the head. My ribs are on the mend and sneezing is not quite the contortion it was last week.

Cheers for now,

Glenn