Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Day 16 - 1 30N 126 30W - The Doldrums

Yes, they are really a place.

After the best sailing day so far, it all came to a stop.
We hit the Doldrums. The water is like glass. There is no wind. The sun is directly overhead and it is hot hot hot. You sweat just sitting in the shade. It is just like in the old-time sailing ship movies where they becalmed for weeks.

This is why we saved our diesel. We knew this was coming so after the sails became useless, we started the engines and headed directly south. We were going 5kts but the current was against us at 1-1.5kts so we just crawled along all day and night into the current, knowing that the shortest path to better wind was not in the direction we really wanted to go.

Running the engines allowed us to charge the batteries and make water. I also tested out and preserved the membrane in the emergency watermaker.

This has really been the land of extremes.

Cheers, Dave & Booker




----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

No comments:

Post a Comment