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Sweet Dream - Tuesday November 12, 2019



A fantastic day of sailing. No squalls, no rain, just good wind and moderate seas all day long, with an occasional odd wave. The kind of sailing that makes you happy to be in this passage. In the morning hours it was even smooth enough to do some nitty gritty cleaning, as well as laundry. We ate our everyday breakfast of granola and yogurt with a nice garnish of frozen raspberries on top, drank our life-giving java, and spent the first half of the day doing chores. For lunch, we had egg salad and crackers. Simple and fun to eat. Then we took turns napping. While Captain napped, I sewed another hiking patch in his backpack, and while I napped, he researched the radar and AIS problems. He never could find a fix for the lack of radar, but through reading the troubleshooting guide, he found that the AIS would transmit better if the radar was in standby mode, rather than off. Weird, but so far it doesn’t bounce back to silent mode since we put it into radar standby. We haven’t been close enough to any other vessel to ask them if we show up yet, but I’m sure the opportunity will arise soon. After our naps we snacked on the last of the tortilla chips, salsa, and a few slices of English cheddar cheese. We listened to Eric Clapton, discussed places we’d like to see, then commenced the late afternoon chores of brining in laundry and fishline, doing the walk about rig check, and planning sail strategy for the night. Our wing on wing plus staysail configuration seems to be working so well in the east-southeast wind, that it’s a no-brainer to leave them as they are. Since we didn’t catch a fish, supper was leftover Sunday roast in gravy on rice with green beans. That was the last of it...sigh...it was such a lovely, tender beastie, we will miss it. I slept and Captain finished his ‘Last Dance’ book. When I came up at 22:00, we had quite the revelation as to why it is sooo important to stay north of 27 south latitude. The current pushed us 15 miles south in four hours flat! Impressive! Up until 18:00 this evening, we’ve been riding the current as it flowed almost due west at the 27 S meridian, but this evening, it took a dramatic turn to the south. We can see if we carried on this tack, we’d be waaay south of Richard’s Bay in 60 hours. So, painful as it is, exacerbated by the wind having backed to just north of East, we furled the main and staysail away, turned 30 degrees to starbrd, and tried sailing with just the poled out Genoa. Even with 18 knots of wind, we were just crabbing south at 4-5 knots. There is 384 miles to go to Richard’s Bay! Wow! This current is impressive! We turned on the engine and are making 6.5 knots sliding almost due west while our nose is pointed at 330 degrees! Well, we’ve had our knuckles rapped for sure; I’m just so happy we caught our “downward” slide in time to correct before the current gets any stronger. I suspect this Agulas current is the South African sister of our North American east coast Gulf Stream...definitely not an entity to take lightly! And, I suspect it is wider than we bargained for!


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