Right now BS and I, continuing our run parallel to the South American coast, are just about 500 miles northeast of the mouth of the Amazon. That's pretty close to the border of French Guiana, so we're just about done with Brazil (not that we've had much to do with Brazil!)
The last several days, since crossing the equator actually, we have experienced very consistent and pleasant conditions: partly cloudy and warm with a steady wind more or less on the beam--the easiest kind of sailing. Sometimes it blows a little harder, sometimes a little more from the north, but basically dependable and easy on me and on BS. The sails are full all the time with a steady load on them--no shock loads which lead quickly to chafing and other kinds of sail damage, which I am really happy to avoid. Daily runs have gratifyingly gotten back into triple digits and there has been no engine use aside from battery charging, so no fuel worries.
If we are lucky enough to continue in this way, I expect landfall in St. Martin (actually Sint Maarten, since I will enter on the south, Dutch, side) about Monday the 27th of April--just about 8 weeks total from Cape Town. For perspective, where I am now is about as far from St. Martin as Cape May, New Jersey is.
I am settled into a routine of course, but I have noticed that some days time hangs a little heavy. I started on a little project I have been putting off--putting the parts together from two defunct alternators to see if I can make one funct(?) one. Been spending an hour or two a day on that. I am pretty much stumped by the current chapter in my physics book: conservation of angular momentum. It's not, like, Smokey the Bear conservation. But I have found in earlier rough patches that sometimes if I come back to it after a day or two of rest, it starts to make sense.
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Thanks to Fred's uncle Kevin for his kind words. Having passed the ITCZ where I needed to motor a lot I think I still have about 80 gallons of fuel. The tradewinds are pretty reliable and I don't expect to motor much from here to the Caribbean. I use about 2 and a half gallons a day for battery charging and there's about 16 days left to go--under 40 gallons. My ($200)Brazilian visa expired April 1, so I think it would be an expensive and painful proposition to go into Brazil, although the port of Fortaleza is now quite close. French Guiana, Suriname and Guyana, the next three South American countries, would also be painful in the same way, but they are theoretically available if fuel becomes a critical issue. Just after that is Trinidad which is cruiser-friendly (the aforementioned South American countries are not, especially) and would be the best bet for refueling, but still only if critical, because it is a hundred miles or so farther downwind than I need to go. The coast is downwind from my planned course all the way to my planned destination, so these places would be all to easy to get to under sail if necessary. (If I get down to the real bottom of the fuel I will hold out 5 gallons in a jerry can for use in harbor entry, maneuvering, etc.) Other than fuel, there really isn't anything I'm anywhere near out of. My water tanks are both full and the watermaker is working fine, knock on wood. I actually even have a few more jars of mustard, although it's not Grey Poupon. I have decided, by the way, to add the extra miles to St. Martin (where Fred will join) rather than stopping in Barbados. Should add 2 or 3 days, for a total around 57 days and 6000 miles for this leg. Single-handing at sea is one thing. Maneuvering, anchoring, docking, etc. alone is quite another thing and once will be quite enough for me, thank you. As this blog has revealed this aspect of voyaging on BS is a challenge even with capable crew. It might be nice if we could put crew into hyper-sleep for the passages like they do on (notional) inter-stellar spaceships. Nice for the skipper, nice for the crew. I will re-fuel in St. Martin, because most of the rest of the voyage--to Bermuda and then Cape Cod--is beyond the tradewind belt and may involve some calms and headwinds (Kevin may remember this from our trip to the Virgin Islands from North Carolina in 2000 or so--my first major offshore passage, which he courageously joined.) So that's my reasoning and I hope it reassures you.
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After four not so nice days blundering through the doldrums I re-crossed the equator just about 4:00 this afternoon, a little more than two years (and a lot of water over the dam--or under the keel) since the south-bound crossing in February of '07 as we approached the Galapagos. I celebrated with a rum and coke and a hoarded little bag of cashews. I have been running the engine a fair amount, maybe half the time or more, to get across this belt of showers and fitful winds that separates the northern from the southern tradewinds. This makes for a hot, noisy and worrisome experience: will the fuel hold out, will the engine burn out, will there be enough Grey Poupon? As voyaging guru Jimmy Cornell had suggested, the belt turned out to be about 150 miles wide at this longitude (as narrow as it gets). It began quite distinctly around 3 degrees south and ended, even more distinctly, right at the equator. I was actually motoring to reach and cross the equator this afternoon, but before I even finished my grog ration a solid wind filled in from the northeast and BS has been flying on a fast beam reach ever since (It's after midnight now). Nothing is certain out here, but right now it looks like fairly smooth sailing the next 1600 miles to my planned landfall in the Caribbean, Barbados. If the winds hold and the boat and I hold together, that should be just over two more weeks. The northeast trades will likely last as I sail north almost to Bermuda. Seems like that's pretty much it for downwind sailing with a poled out jib, for this voyage at least. Hard to believe.
Hats off to the many sailors before me who have crossed this grim segment of the sea without benefit of mechanical propulsion. I can easily see how my slightly anxious 3 or 4 days of heck could have been weeks of hell for a vessel entirely dependent on more or less favorable breezes for its progress. "Water, water everywhere, and all the boards did shrink. Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink." Samuel Coleridge, "Rime of the Ancient Mariner."
Fred has been sending along the "comments" on the blog that have appeared during this leg. Thanks to all for your good wishes. And, Sally, concerning fallibility, there's no lack of it on BS! Better to be lucky than good, I always say.
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