Day 15 - Early Wind

Just before dark yesterday I was forced to drop all sails. After I secured the boat I looked up and saw the Windex indicator going round and round, which indicates no discernible wind. It turned out to be a pleasant evening, ahull in the calm sea under a nearly full moon. We were drifting about 0.8 kn to the west and a little bit of northing.

At 5.30 AM I woke to the hum of the Rutland wind charger. That meant a sailing wind. (It was like "Robert, wake up! It's time to sail.") It looked like a SE wind. Fifteen minutes later we were under sail with the full headsail. I hoisted the mainsail on the run, got confused with my reefing lines and by the time I realized my error the sail was up almost to the first reef point, so finished the hoist and soon we were headed south at 4.5 kt under full headsail and 1 reef on the mainsail. The Apparent wind was about 12 kt.

I was just west of longitude 114W, which is farther west than the 110W that I had envisioned, but I was not at all concerned given that the Ocean Passages sailing directions for San Francisco to Cape Horn call for passing latitude 5 North at longitude between 120 and 122 West.

I was glad that I had refueled and tightened up the ropes holding the fuel containers to the rails the previous day while things were calm. Yes, a vent cap on one of the containers had blown and there were diesel stains on the port side of the spray dodger. This was the first container that I emptied during my refueling, and I saw no evidence of water in the Baja filter. Not much rain or sea water - if any - would have passed though the small vent hole (which was fortunately facing aft) to contaminate the fuel. In a few days I'll check the bulbs at the bottom of the fuel tanks for water.

At noon our position was 10N19, 114W07. I was on the same latitude as Clipperton Island, 290 miles east of my position, and working my way through the latitudes of Costa Rica. The noon-noon ("n-n" from now on) distance was 44 miles. That may not look like an impressive number, but I was pleased with it, given that the previous day I appeared to be in the middle of the doldrums with no great prospects for a fast exit.

I thought that I had been in the doldrums. The weather faxes showed the narrow ITCZ band as looping up slightly from 110N at about my longitude, and the clearing skies and livelier wind may have meant that somehow I may have gotten through and past the ITCZ. If this proved to be true (I should know in about 24 hours.) I would consider myself a very fortunate sailor.

The wind was holding up at noon. It got to a lively 15 kt apparent in the early morning, but at 11.30 I got a scare when the wind veered 30 degrees and slackened to 10 or 11 kt. But not long after noon it backed 30 degrees and Pachuca was once again headed south doing about 4.2 kt against a 12 kt apparent wind.

The afternoon wind-wave weather fax clearly showed the thin band of the ITCZ to be looping to 11N-12N at my longitude. This was consistent with what I had experienced in the previous 3 days, and it pretty well confirmed to me that I was past the doldrums.

At precisely 4.55 PM we crossed latitude 10N, the first milestone for me since leaving the Sea of Cortez not the least because I was now beyond any danger of any late season hurricane. I still had about 500 miles of ocean before I could expect the beginning of the reliable and steady SE trade winds just north of the equator, and the weather fax charts were very ambiguous about what to expect.

The sailing had been outstanding since daybreak: calm sea, sunny sky, and making 4-5 kt against a moderate breeze. Although the wind had weakened late in the afternoon I was still sailing south at 3.5 knots and was hoping that the good fortune of the day would persist into the night.

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