Lunch €” Monday 08.14.06

Today we had the end of Max’s lovely Mahi Mahi (served with a white sauce with little shrinp and garlic). Six or seven meals for four from one fish! We will let Max start fishing again tomorrow. I want him to get another little Yellow Fin tuna, the others are favoring another Mahi Mahi. We have found the wasabi, so we are ready.

Location: 32° 8.2 S, 10° 15 W
Monday 12:00, 08.14.2006

The Schooner Maggie B’s noon position on August 14th was 32° 08.2 S, 10° 15 W. We have a lovely Northwesterly (340-350 at 18-25) and are headed 120 degrees, right for Cape Town, at 10 knots. We only did 177 NM since yesterday noon due to a very slow period (my watch…) while the High was forming South of us.

Cape Town is now 1462 NM, or six days if we could keep up this speed and direction. We have gone 2255 NM since Salvador. Tristan da Cunha is now about 320 NM away to our SW. We seem to be having a SW’erly current helping us a bit, adding 1/2 knot to our speed and a bit of a lee bow push (moving us North a bit).

The waves are somewhat mixed up as there is a big Southerly swell, plus the remains of the SW swell, all livened up by the wind waves being kicked up by the strong NW’erly. But we are riding them well and little spray comes on board.

We are beginning to plot our approach to the African coast. Cape Town is 34 degrees South and we need to hold perhaps another degree South for room against a possible SE’erly. But each degree south of 30 edges us towards bigger weather. There does look like an interesting break coming towards the end of the week, but we will not be far enough along to take much advantage of it.

To date we have run the main engine for 47 hours and the generator for 48. Very conservatively, this means that we have used about 115 gallons of diesel, leaving us about 200 gallons, or 100 hours with the main engine, or 700 miles steaming. Plenty for our approach!

The sea today is a steely blue gray. Occasionally a wave will rear up so that there is a thin “window” which is the bright azure of a South Seas lagoon. Lovely contrast, and reminder of the marvels ahead in the Seychelles and South Pacific.

One Blue Water emotion that is hard to explain is how nice it is to be a thousand or so miles from land. Yes, we are all on our own in the South Atlantic in winter, with a series of gales not too far to our South. But so much of a sailor’s fear of gales is the danger of getting driven ashore either because of an anchor not holding or a mooring parting or getting dismasted and the engine conking out. In Blue Water you have the ability to work on your problems without crashing breakers reducing your options. Here you have the ability to run a hundred miles in one direction or another to stay out of trouble and time your exposure.

All is well.