Tradewinds Sailing Blog

It seems we can’t catch a break. With less than 100 miles to get to Fortaleza, a big harbor of refuge, the wind perked up dramatically this morning, and has been blowing 28-32 knots all day. Right on the nose, of course. So we are back to a double-reefed main and half a jib, and slowly tacking our way down the coast, trying to eke out whatever protection we can. Generally, we are within a mile of the beach, in 15 to 25 feet of water.

Other than the wind, the rest of the day is normal- sunny and clear, temps in the 80’s day and night, and when we do catch spray, which happens a lot in this wind, it is warm water- also in the mid-80’s.

We are seeing lots of jangadas, the small wooden fishing boats, almost like a scow, with a crab-claw sail on a tree mast. They are everywhere, and as the sun set last night we counted 12 sailing in just our neighborhood. Today I’ve only seen 2, and one of them had the sail rolled up and was headed for the beach under bare poles. I know how he feels…

On the food front, Steve ate his last fresh apple today, and that marks the end of our fresh produce.  As we have been out for 17 days now, that’s actually pretty good.

With some luck, we may pull into Fortaleza sometime tomorrow, at least for a short break and to check it out.

02.55S  39.43W   2466nm gone,  2689nm to go.  3pm  7/14

Today is another mellow day, with light wind and calm seas and mostly sunny skies.  Just a squall or two, but Steve and I don’t worry about those, because they only seem to come when Marianne is on watch. It’s like the squalls are on the same rotating schedule we are, because whenever Marianne is on deck, that’s when the squalls come.  So we are calling her Squall-Master Marianne now.

We are close along the northern coast of Brazil, and can see the long sandy beaches and sand dunes of this region, but not much else, as there are no hills or mountains anywhere near. Lots of small fishing boats, though. And this morning we passed a wind farm- 15 huge modern windmills lined up along the beach, generating power for somewhere.

The only minor issue today was a bolt of some sort worked loose from a mainsail batten where it attaches to the mast car, which meant that section of sail wasn’t attached to the mast like it should be.

Although we don’t have the right size replacement bolt, a fat cotter pin seems to be doing the job for now.

An interesting ritual we have developed, just by happenstance, is to gather on deck about 30 minutes before sunset every day. It doesn’t seem to matter who is on watch or resting, we all wind up out there, watching the sun go down, wondering what kind of display nature has planned for us each day. Will we get a green flash? Beams of light through the clouds? The red ball of lava sinking into the sea?  With cameras ready, we just relax and watch it unfold, our own private show.

02.47S  41.35W   2316nm gone,  2798nm to go.   2:30pm  7/13

Things have improved today, weather-wise. The howling winds have reduced to 10-15 knots, and the seas are back down to 2-4 feet, which is a good thing. It’s still blowing from where we want to go, so progress remains slow, but every day we get closer to turning the corner at the eastern end of Brazil.

Everyone is feeling more positive and in good spirits today, and we all remain in good health. Marianne, who has already sailed around the world, commented that this is the cleanest trip she’s ever done- the luxury of the big water tanks means she gets to wash up daily, and it’s so much nicer not to be salty and grimy all the time. A nice squall this morning let us fill the bucket with rainwater runoff from the bimini, so Steve did another load of laundry.  We’ve been eating well enough, though none of us seems to be eating as much as we do when at home. We’ve also been more focused on using up the refrigerated goods first, so the rest of the trip may be a lot more canned food for all.

02.11S   43.36W    2178nm gone,  2943nm to go.   3pm  7/12

We got to the coast, but didn’t get much relief. The wind has been blowing 22 to 32 knots since yesterday, with 8 foot frothy seas to match, and its all on our nose- coming right from where we want to go.

We’ve been sailing with 2 reefs in the main and about half a jib, and slowly tacking our way down the coast. Our track looks like the front of Charlie Brown’s shirt. It’s progress, but its slow.  If it continues tomorrow, we may anchor somewhere just to take a break and rest up for a while.

Other than that, the weather remains mostly sunny and hot, and we’re enjoying the gibbous moon at night. We also enjoyed the last of our Suriname mangoes today- hairy, juicy, sweet and delicious.

01.09S  45.09W   2035nm gone,  3033nm to go.   3pm  7/11

We crossed the line!  From summer to winter in the blink of an eye.

Now the numbers of Latitude are getting bigger again. We’re affirmed and re-affirmed Trusty Shellbacks- no Slimy Pollywogs here. That’s right, we sailed across the equator at about 2:30pm this afternoon. We toasted King Neptune, and asked for him to look a tad bit more favorably upon us with regards to the wind and seas and currents. Then we drank a shot of rum and gave an equal share to King Neptune.

In the “be careful what you wish for” department, last night’s very light winds turned into surprisingly strong winds about midnight, and right on the nose, of course, with rapidly building seas to go with it. So we have been forced to head more south than east, hoping to find some relief along the coast. On the plus side, we have been sailing fast- mostly 8 and 9 knots all day, which is why we crossed the line so early.

All the books and guides talk about the light NE winds to be found here, and how it never blows more than 15 knots from any direction, with July and August having the lightest winds. And how the current should only be about one half knot. Yeah, right. We’ve had winds in the 20’s most of the day, and last night saw 3 to 4 knots of current against us. We’re making the best of it, but if the coast doesn’t offer better conditions, it is going to be a long slog to the eastern tip of Brazil.

00.02S  45.56W     1884nm gone,    3102nm to go.  2:45pm  7/10

First of all, satellite reception is the worst on the equator, surprisingly, so I am having trouble getting  data connection. So be patient over the next few days, just in case.

The sea is an amazing deep blue out here, finally away from the Amazon’s brown influence, and the sky is a blue to match.

Unfortunately, the winds remain very light, and the current is strong against us, even though it is not supposed to be. So we make the best of it, progress slower than we would like, but hard to complain with such beautiful weather.

Steve tried fishing (trolling a line) with an ultralight spinning rod for most of yesterday, but only upon reeling in the lure at sunset did he realize he hadn’t taken the protective plastic cover off the hook!  So theoretically, a fish may have swallowed it, only to have us yank it back out of his mouth, since there was no hook to catch him with. Fishing experts we are not.

01.41N   46.53W   1750nm gone, 3200nm to go.   3pm  7/9

Today has been pleasantly uneventful so far.  8 to 10 knots of breeze, mostly flat seas, lots of sunshine and blue skies, some puffy white clouds, and hot. We are finally offshore enough to see some sealife, and twice now dolphin have paid us a visit. But its not offshore enough to avoid the influence of the mighty Amazon river. Even this far out, its effluent (along with a 17-foot tidal swing) affects us, creating currents, swirls and eddies seemingly in the middle of the ocean.

It is interesting how little we get done each day. Maybe it’s the influence of the weather, the routine, our diet, the rotating watch schedule, and I don’t know what else, but we tend to lay around a lot, and not have a lot of energy. Its rather nice, really, as there’s not that much that needs to be done. One day I cut my finger nails AND my toe nails. That was an exhausting day. The next day I just shaved.

Yesterday was laundry. After all that acivity, there’s nothing scheduled for today, allowing us all to recover from our individual efforts.

One thing is for sure- we have a lot of time with nothing but our own thoughts for company. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

02.56N  48.49W   1604nm gone,  3340nm to go.  3pm 7/8.

French Guiana has come and gone, and we are now in the waters of Brazil!

Weird weather to go with it, too, as we are now in the ITCZ, or Intertropical Convergence Zone, which is a fancy scientific name for the mixed up region where the northern and southern hemisphere weather systems collide. Last night we saw huge squalls and torrential rains with East winds, then early morning saw SW winds, and for the first time the squalls did not go from our left to our right. Lots of rain through the morning, but this afternoon is back to our clear and sunny with light winds, although now they are from the NE.

The promise of a dry afternoon has made me declare today to be laundry day- and we now have lots of colored decorations streaming from the lifelines on both sides of the ship, drying in the hot tropical sun.

For now,  we are going to try to stay pretty much on the rhumb line towards the far east corner of Brazil, which means we will be far offshore from the Amazon river basin and all of its effluent. If the adverse currents get uglier, we may try going back inshore, but it would be a pretty big detour. If we can hold the course, we should be out of sight of land for maybe 600 miles or so.

04.18N  50.58W  1448nm gone,  3493nm to go.  3pm  7/7

Today has us sailing along the coast of French Guiana, which from our perspective doesn’t look a whole lot different than the last two countries. Although we have seen a few taller, more modern buildings here, and there are less fishing boats about.

The sky remains very open and blue, the sun strong and hot, and the water mostly a milky green and still on the shallow side, which should persist until tomorrow, when we will start to get farther from shore.

The winds are light, and look to stay that way for a while, maybe down to the equator and beyond, so we switch from sailing to motoring when progress gets too slow, confident in the resources of our new crew members Larry, Mo and Curly. The equatorial current still punishes us off and on, and we see our speed drop a knot when going against the stream. Not much to be done about that here, unfortunately.

We are happy to be making some progress, and some southing again, as we start to anticipate our audience with King Neptune somewhere off the Amazon river basin. Marianne and I are trying to get Steve to put out his fishing line and catch us something tasty, he is holding back, saying the water here is too shallow and not clear enough for his tastes.

We shared the first mango from yesterday’s picking, and it was delicious.

05.27N  52.44W  1318nm gone,  3618nm to go.   3pm 7/6