King Neptune granted me permission to cross the equator yesterday evening, and even gave me a gift to help me on my way.<\/p>\n
All day yesterday, I had been getting wind from the NE, which was wrong. It was supposed to be just East, from 90 degrees, but I was getting wind from 50 degrees. Even with my NW course, it meant that the wind was forward of the beam- my apparent wind was 70-80 degrees. I had the sails sheeted in, the boat was heeled over, and while the boat wasn’t pounding or anything, it was still wrong. But it was what it was, so I made the best of it.<\/p>\n
At 6:27pm yesterday, I crossed the equator, took the obligatory photo of the GPS proving it, shared some rum with Neptune, then went below to enter it in the log. When I came back on deck just a few minutes later, everything had changed! The wind had veered back to East, making my apparent wind at 110 degrees, properly aft of the beam. So I eased the sails, the boat flattened out and sped up, and all was right with the world again. Welcome back to the north!<\/p>\n
One temporary setback is the loss of my good current. It turns due east along the equator, which doesn’t help me, but doesn’t hurt either. I should start catching the favorable northbound Guyana current when I get to latitude 2, maybe tonight or tomorrow morning.<\/p>\n
4\/3 \u00a08am \u00a00.59N \u00a044.19W \u00a0 3138nm gone, \u00a02337nm to go<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
King Neptune granted me permission to cross the equator yesterday evening, and even gave me a gift to help me on my way. All day yesterday, I had been getting wind from the NE, which was wrong. It was supposed … Continue reading