Day 25, March 31 (Part 2)

I had a very important success with weather fax. I downloaded a grainy but mostly legible wfax out of Wiluna, Western Australia, at 18 mHz. It wasn't just any wfax, but the 0730 UTC one covering the Indian Ocean in polar form. It was dated 1100 EDT which would make it about 0000 UTC, 8 hours earlier. I could see the highs, lows and fronts clearly, but the scales were difficult to read. However, I recognized the outline of Australia and was able to read two of the longitude numbers above. Using that I was able to locate my position, the cold front about to go overhead and the low of 982 at its base, east and well to the south of me. I could also see the high of 1034 to the west and south of me that will provide those SW winds after the front passes. Reception should improve as I close in on Australia, and when I finally get a very clear wfax I will know which curving lines represent which latitude, and similarly for the straight lines of longitude radiating from the south pole. I was very pleased with this success because it gives me an important new dimension to my weather information.

I had chided myself for not having logged my position reports for the first 6 weeks or so of the run to the Horn, but of course I had logged them - in my blog. So I brought out the backup computer that had seen me from Mexico to Argentina and went through each blog in the Sailmail "out" box to record the position for that day. The next step will be to enter the positions as waypoints in OpenCPN.

The front began to pass over at 0930 but I just kept working with the computer. There was rain, squall like winds, but nothing serious. When I finished my work and put the spare computer away I looked at the chart plotter and saw that there had been an almost 90 degree wind shift from the WNW to SW, putting us on a course of N. The wind had moderated and I executed a painless gybe.

When I returned to the cabin I was sweating as usual under my wet weather gear, but even when I took it off an shed a sweater the cabin seemed downright muggy. The temperature was 19.3C (67F).

Another challenging session with Sam. He could hear me and I gave him my status report but reception from him would come and go. He managed to give me the brief forecasts for today (SW 15-25) and tomorrow (SW 25-35) but I could not understand anything beyond that. But everything cleared up after we had giveb up and he was telling me that we would try again tomorrow, so I asked him to repeat his previous message and I managed to get the forecast for Tuesday (SSW 15-30) as well as the strength and location of the high at 0600 Tuesday. He then asked me how I was doing and I replied that all of the equipment on the boat was working well and we were sailing along just fine. Other than some possible high winds tomorrow (I'm betting that they'll be closer to 25 than 35 kts) it looks like I can look forward to 2 days of moderate sailing with moderate progress. If I can make 100 miles per day I'll be a Happy Little Vegemite, as they say in Australia.

The noon numbers were:

POS 39S42, 61E08
NND 105 nm
DMG 2087 nm
DTG 2701 nm

After the noon report I entered 44 waypoints representing the early positions of the passage to the Horn into OpenCPN. The result was well worth the effort: the boat's position each day, marked with an "x" and labeled with the day of the month, covering all passages since La Paz.

The house bank was at 12.5V and I could have gone another day but I decided to do an engine run today while conditions were relatively calm rather than tomorrow when I expected high winds. There was no oil pressure alarm problem.

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