Moving Along

We have been at sea for eight days so far, and expect to pass the north east corner of Brazil within the next 3 days. We have had some wonderful spinnaker sailing most of the way making nearly 200 miles per day. We haven’t seen much marine life, and until yesterday we haven’t seen any sea birds since leaving the area of St. Helena. We have seen plenty of flying fish, so we know there are fish out there. But, we have been going to fast to do any fishing.

We might get to do some fishing later today though. Our weather forecast shows lighter winds late this afternoon and through the night. We get a brief boost of the winds tomorrow, but then we hit the equatorial ITCZ (Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone) and the winds will get very light and shift in direction. If we are lucky, we’ll have enough wind and wind angle to keep us moving while we reach the NE corner of Brazil where a current will help us along.

Life on board as been good. Although the temperature has been rising, we have had enough wind to still have some breeze. The moon has been getting bigger and we have had gloriously bright full moons the last too nights. It’s great to sea the flickering reflection of the moon on the waters as night! Karen and I are in our routines with our day and night watches. Karen did some baking a couple days ago and I’ve been treated to blueberry muffins for breakfast the last couple of days. We even fired up our Wii while running the generator and played some games.

We will be close to half way when we reach the NE corner of Brazil in about 3 days, after 10+ days. So, we still have nearly two weeks to go before we arrive at the Caribbean. This is a lonnnnggg passage!