Moonshadow’s Day 13 Passage Report

Good bye Doldrums, good bye Roll-drums, good bye squall-drums. Hello Southern Trades!!

1900 zulu, April 12, 2016
02 deg. 25.2 min. SOUTH!
130 degrees 18.2 min. West
Wind East AT 17 knots
Sea conditions ENE swell 3'
Sky condition 100% blue sky

1900 zulu 24 hour distance covered: 173 nautical miles
Total distance from La Cruz: 2012 nautical miles
Total distance remaining: 675 nautical miles

Send the fun police, 'cause we are having way too much fun. I used the analogy before of a young pent up colt finally being released to romp around and that's how Moonshadow reacts to 15-17 knots of Southern Tradewinds on the beam. We are flying along at 10 knots taking turns calling out the speeds on some of the waves: "11.3, 10.7, 12.8, etc". Meanwhile the scene around us is indigo blue ocean sprinkled with small white caps and a cobalt sky studded with the occasional white cotton ball.

Some of this speeding will abate when we sail out of the equatorial current we're in, which is adding a knot to our water speed. It's like running on a conveyor belt. As we traverse Southwest across this river of water flowing westward, we will realize when we reach the other side by watching the GPS speed (our speed across the surface of the earth) fall back in line with our water speed.

The GPS is also teasing us with time to arrival predictions that are now under 70 hours. Can that be? We try not to put too much stock in those numbers because the math puts a premium on our current speed and we have no guarantee it'll hold up. But, having just logged 13 days on passage, getting told you have less than three days left makes you feel positively giddy. If you let it.

All is good aboard Moonshadow

John and Deb Rogers
SV Moonshadow

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