Day 90 - Passing the Falklands

It has taken me less than 12 hours to get hooked on Falklands Radio. The first thing that I did after waking this morning up was as always to check the boat's position, course, speed. The second thing was to look through the hatch to make sure that the headsail and the shrouds had survived the night intact. The third thing, almost without conscious thought, was to turn on the radio. I don't think that "pop" is a good description of the station. To me it sounds like a mixture of ABC and News Radio in Australia, or like the Canadian CBC. Last night I heard part of the nightly current affairs and business reports from the BBC and did a lot of catching up on the Euro (and world!) financial crisis. (I'm with Angel Merckel. The Greeks have to do more. How can you run a modern economy where the only tool against flagrant tax dodgers is "name and shame" rather than prosecution and confiscation.) I'm amazed at the amount of normalcy the radio service has brought to the atmosphere of the boat after 3 months at sea.

The boat moved well all night. I set the alarm to wake me up in 3 hours because we were due to pass 23 miles south of Beauchine Island and I wanted to make sure that a totally unexpected wind shift was not sending us to the north. All was OK so I slept on for another 4 hours. In the morning I saw with great pleasure the surprisingly straight track of the boat to the east (085T). Even with reduced sail we were moving at over 4 knots in front of a wind in the low 20's. Beauchine Island was well behind us and we were half way across the southern shore of East Falkland island and 90 miles SSW of Stanley. I saw no reason for changing course at this point, particularly because it would keep me outside of the 200 meter contour line around the Falklands, but if a 20 degree veering of the wind came as expected in a few hours I would gybe the boat and head NNE. The latest spot wind report indicated no winds stronger than 26 knots for the next 4 days, so I was hopeful of reaching 50S without encountering heavy weather.

At 10 AM local time (UTC-3) the boat's track confirmed that the expected veer of the wind had occurred and I gybed the boat. The course seemed to be 040T which would give me good clearance of the Falklands. In time the track on the laptop chart plotter would confirm the actual course. (It turned out to be 30T, still OK.)

In the late morning the wind strengthened to the mid-20's and waves began to slam into the side of the boat partly, I suspect, because we were sailing into shallower waters. I shortened the headsail to maybe half the size of the trysail to protect it and to reduce the load on the rigging. With a strong fair wind and following sea I saw no need to stress the boat and in fact we were still doing over 4 knots. This conservatism would have to be my approach all of the way to Cape Town.

At noon our position was 52S56, 58W00, giving us a n-n distance of 89 miles in the direction 073T. We were 45 miles east of Beauchine Island and 35 miles from the southern most latitude of East Falkland Island. The boat was taking a pounding from the waves in a 29 knot wind and I suspected that this would be a very dangerous location during a gale, given that we were at the top of a steeply rising ocean bottom. An even more dangerous place would be the Burdwood bank to the south, which rises from over 1000 meters to less than 200 meters then falls again. Pachuca had sailed past the west side of it then turned east and ran along the the depths between the bank and the shallows around the Falklands.

At last light Pachuca was north of the southern shore of East Falkland and was beginning the 60 mile passage along its east side. Even though the coast was less than 40 miles away I had not been able to see the island because it was shrouded in cloud and mist. It had been a much rougher day than I had anticipated. The wind had been a bit higher than predicted but it was the ferocity of the sea that surprised me. A couple of times the boat was hit so hard that I checked the deck to make sure that the fuel containers were OK. I had been apprehensive about the passage past the Falklands because I knew of several boats that had gotten past the Horn OK only to be slammed hard near the Falklands. The wind was still a hefty 23-25 knots. I had stayed in the cabin most of the day, venturing out only for quick dashes to run the engine or adjust Jeff's airvane. I was hoping for some relief when we got into the lee of East Falkland.

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