Food will not be a problem. I am eating less than I expected, and there is a huge variety of items, e.g. canned corn, olives, instant noodle meals, juices in carton, that I haven't even touched. I have felt no need to take the excellent daily vitamin pills that I have on board. Even when I run out onions, potatoes (2 left) and limes I figure that there will be enough vitamin C to keep me healthy in the sauces that I use. Having said that, if I have any doubts I'll start taking the vitamins.
The last stage of the ice box and refrigerator cleanout was the washing of every item of plastic. I retain the ziplock bags for other uses. Plastic that I cannot reuse winds up in a garbage bag awaiting my arrival to shore. Every other type of garbage goes overboard, including glass and cans.
I found two new sources of weather information in text form via Sailmail for the SE Pacific. One (Met.15) is issued by the Chilean Navy weather service and covers areas to the west and south of Chile, including Drake Passage. The other (Met.16) covers the area east of longitude 120W between the equator and 18.5S. Both are in English.
In the evening I tried something different. Normally I set up the Acer computer for a movie after dinner. This time I set it up earlier and had a look at some of the literally hundreds of albums that brother Arnold had passed over to my external hard drive when he was on the boat. (Thanks Arnold!) I used the VLC media player and fed the output to the boat's sound system then spent a great 45 minutes cooking and eating dinner to the mellow sounds of Johnny Mathis filling the cabin. I felt like a million dollars and boy, could that guy sing! There is a lot to be said for modern boating.
At 4 AM I was up snooping around the weather fax world. I got a good one from Honolulu and because I have their schedule they are now another fax resource for me. I tried Wiluna in Western Australia and got a very readable weather chart. By sheer chance I had jagged the time when they transmit the surface chart of the polar region to 10 degrees south. Wonderful! Another resource. I didn't have much luck with Chile, but I don't have their schedule (couldn't get it on the internet) and they may have been shut down at that time of night.
At 9 AM I woke up to find the boat still moving SW at about 5 kt. As the grib file had predicted, the wind had moderated somewhat but because the ocean was so calm with its long and low swell the sails stayed filled when the wind got down to lows of 8 kt apparent and the boat kept moving. We had already done 65 minutes of southing since the previous noon and I expected our position to be within 1 degree of the equator by noon. The day was overcast and drizzly, with showers on the eastern horizon. (I thought that the equator was supposed to be sunny and dry ????)
We were at the latitude of Quito, Ecuador, 2500 miles to the east.
During the night I went over a few notes that I had taken of Jeanne Socrate's sail toward the Horn at this time last year on her boat Nereida. My recollection had been that she had zoomed past the equator much faster than me, and I had just enough data to make a rough comparison. Nereida had sailed out of Victoria, BC Canada. On 13 Nov she as at 23N, 123W, 725 miles west of Cabo San Lucas. On 28 Nov she was at 01N, 118W and she crossed the equator on 29 Nov, representing a span of 16 days from the latitude of Cabo to the equator. It looked like my transit from La Paz to the equator would be 25 days, but let's not forget that it took me 5.5 days to sail past Cabo San Lucas into the Pacific Ocean. Even then I was still at a disadvantage because the winds near the coast were weaker than those far out to sea. Putting that aside, it looks my comparable transit to the equator will be 20 days. That's 4 days longer than Nereida's transit, which is no where near as bad a comparison as I had expected, given my difficulties in the doldrums and with my headsail. Even so, I expect to cross the equator on 20 November, 9 precious days before Nereida's crossing.
Then there is the issue of longitude. Because Nereida departed from Canada she sailed down the 123W meridian in order to clear the west coast of North America. According to my notes Nereida passed midway between Easter Island and Dulcie Island to the west on 10 Dec. That would have put her at about 120W. The point I'm making is that my present position near 120W is not outrageously out of order - In fact it is the recommended meridian for a sailing vessel out of San Francisco for the Horn. (Specifically, cross the equator at 120-122W then make for 124W at 30S until the trade winds are encountered.)
On 4 January Nereida was at 54S28, 79W19, 400 miles from the Horn. I calculated that had she not been severely knocked down she would have made the rounding on 7 January, representing a 39 day transit from the equator. This is not a race but Nereida's experience does provide a benchmark for my endeavor. It is very likely that my passage time to the Horn will be slower than Nereida's. However, I'll be starting with a 9 day advantage from the equator, so barring unforeseen difficulties my prospects of rounding the Horn in early January seem good.
At noon our position was 00N54, 119W56. We had a n-n distance of 131 miles in the direction 236T. We had moved south 1 degree and 13 minutes (i.e. 73') in the 24 hours.
In the early afternoon I dug deep into the starboard cabin storage locker to fetch 5 or 6 items. Everything was in order: no breakages or spillages, and the locker was dry. The inventory spreadsheet is working very well and I am meticulous about keeping it up to date.
Another 1 hour engine run (126.4 hrs).
It looks like I may have dodged a bullet. I was surprised to see a tropical cyclone at approximately 10N, 102W and headed WNW. I was at latitude 10N nine days ago trying to inch my way through the doldrums and if I had seen that coming at me I would have freaked out big time, though I'm sure that I would have used its leading winds to scoot me south fast. At this point it is 1200 miles to the NE and I understand that storms never track within 5 degrees of the equator.
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