In the Doldrums
Anastasia
Phil May and Andrea Twigg
Sun 12 Feb 2012 04:53
|
3:35.3N 83:22.7W
As expected, the light winds have meant our
progress is relatively poor and we were lying around mid-fleet at the morning
radio call. Our current calculations show that we will come last in the
catamaran group unless the other boats motor more than we do, so the focus today
has been on motoring as little as possible. If our speed drops below 4
knots consistently then we motor for a while, but otherwise we are
sailing. We have managed with just 6 hours of engine so far today,
which is pretty good considering we are currently smack in the middle of the
Doldrums. But right now we have 10 knots of wind from the south-east
allowing us to sail at about 7 knots directly towards Galapagos, which is
good progress.
The Doldrums are notorious for sending people mad, which might be why Andrea has been acting even more crazy than she usually does on passage. Today she has been walking around wailing DOOOLDRUUUMS; sitting on the back steps coaxing the "leetle fisheees" to take their bait like good little fishes; and talking in a parrot voice to the ships parrot (toy) that we picked up in Panama. She also took this picture of the sunset we had this evening.
The flat sea is typical of the doldrums, where the wind is not consistent enough
to generate any significant ocean swell. |
