Day 25 - Merry Christmas to All

This is Christmas Eve on board Pachuca, which is on UTC/GMT time. Western Australia is at UTC+8 and the Seattle area of the USA is at UTC-8, so at 4 PM Pachuca time I will raise a toast of wine wishing my friends and relatives in Australia, Mexico, the USA, and Canada a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS to them all. Pachuca, of course, will be out at sea with its restricted communications, but I can imagine the good wishes that will be put into the blog and I will take great pleasure in reading them when I am ashore.

Pachuca is off to a good start on her leg to S Africa, and if the latest grib file is to be believed she is on a bit of a roll with the wind through the 25th of December. We have been running downwind under headsail at 4-5.5 kts since leaving TdC. Yesterday afternoon I gybed the boat several times in order to maintain a track as directly for Cape Town at 084T as possible, but for the night I left Pachuca on a port broad reach taking her to the ENE. That suited me because I wanted to get up to latitude 36S. The boat sailed herself well all night and I woke at 6.30 AM after a warm and comfortable sleep to find us at 36S21 on a course centered on 067T. I could have gybed to take us due east but decided to hang on for an expected veering of the wind at noon, which would move Pachuca's course more to the east. Bright sunshine was beginning to break through the morning mist and I was looking forward to the kind of sailing day that I had envisioned and hoped for in this passage to S Africa.

I have been trying hard to raise a wfax out of S. Africa with no success. I then brought up the Australian wfax schedule to verify that they were transmitting at that time and managed to hear a recognizable wfax signal out of Wiluna in Western Australia on 18.060 MHz. It was music to my ears and I listened to the entire transmission. Jeanne did not express much confidence in the S Africa wfax service, so it could be the same story as that of the Brazilian wfax "service" that does not exist. Looking at the Aussie wfax schedule reminded me of the rich and comprehensive wfax services provided by Australia, New Zealand, and the USA. I counted 59 transmissions out of Australia each day. Rio offers 5 and both Chile and Cape Town offer 11. (Don't get me wrong. The Chile service is very reliable and effective and was indispensable during my approach and rounding of the Horn. I was never blindsided approaching the Horn as I was with those two nasty gales on this passage from Brazil.)

At mid morning I started work on repairing the spray dodger. One of the zippers has lost 3 of its teeth and I hope that I can zip past that area when the time comes. There is stitching each side of the zipper, the upper to the dodger itself and the lower to the bolt rope, and I realized that I would have to restitch both sides, doubling the sewing effort. It did not take long to be set myself comfortably and begin sewing with a cd of rock from 1964 to keep me company. I figure that the job will take me 3 days of work and by then I would have worked my way down to the through each cd year by year to 1954 2 or 3 times.

Our noon position was 36S18, 10W04, giving us a n-n distance of 112 miles in the direction 070T, and we were now 1475 miles from the Cape of Good Hope. We were still moving well before a west wind. The barometer had risen 6 points to 1016 and it was a brilliantly sunny day.

At 4 PM I raised a cup of Christmas cheer wine to all. I had a special thought for Rick of La Paz who not been well. And finally Jeanne Socrates, who two days ago was at 41S, 107W, still 1800 miles from the Horn. But it was a happy thought because I could imagine Jeanne preparing a very special 3 course meal with the finest wine for Christmas dinner.

At 10 PM we were still moving well in front of a good wind.

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