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Nexus - Sailing into the Doldrums




A glorious second sailing day on Leg 2, riding a jet of 20-22kts astern coming out of the Gulf of Panama, venting into what we're told is a vast vacuum of no wind in the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) or better known as "The Doldrums". We've been ghosting along at 8-10kts all day, boosted by the occasional pat on the bottom from sets of small waves scooting us along our way. With forecasts of the wind dying this evening or tomorrow (or more accurately we will sail out of the wind), we'll have to turn on the Iron Genny. We saw another whale near the boat at 0630 this morning, which was great accompaniment for another spectacular sunrise. We sailed in company with Boingo Alive, who came across our stern at sunrise for some really great photo shots of their Parasailor Spinnaker, and with KoKo who were making good time along with us. We lost two simultaneous strikes on our lines this morning as we took too long to figure out which rod to run to when they were both going, and at 9kts you've got to hook them well! We don't have much freezer space left anyway. We can see NDS Darwin and Alpharatz on the AIS nearby, but nobody else in range although the banter continues on the VHF. Looking forward to a calm evening and another great sunset.


Russ and Laurie on NEXUS 16:16 at 05 02'N;081 01W

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