Location 33° 03S 178° 50WEST
Thursday 12:00, 07.19.2007

The Schooner Maggie B was at 33° 03 S, 178° 50 W at noon on July 19th, GMT +12, where yesterday it was GMT -12. I haven’t yet been able to persuade the Furuno operating system that today is yesterday, so it may be time to break out the books. The MaxSEA software refused to cross the Date Line and had to head all the way back West, around the globe to work. But we crossed the line last night about 2000 and broke out a bottle of champagne (oops, Tasmanian sparkling).

We have come 408 NM and have 1831 to go to Tahiti.

Many people have told me that we are “going the wrong way around.” Hard to fully understand how anybody could argue with today’s sail: doing 6-7 knots in 10-12 knots of wind on our beam, all in t-shirts and shorts and barefoot. We did the usual make/fix jobs, including new leather jackets for some blocks, repairing running lights, and adjusting the bolts for the centerboard hydraulic “foot.” One bolt broke and we didn’t have a spare long enough, but, thanks to Bart Gabriel’s advice (shipmate for the Southern Atlantic Crossing) we had a meter of 8 mm threaded rod, which we cut to length.

We are currently setting a course right along 33 degrees South (heading about 74 degrees magnetic) rather than right for Papeete (heading about 50 degrees magnetic). I expect we’ll get some more Easterly winds after this next low, and it gives some “Northing” to draw on, when we need to. Theresa complained at lunch that it wouldn’t get warmer if we stayed at 33 degrees South, but I said that we’d get to Tahiti faster and not have to beat our brains out to get there, which made it OK.

Over the last few nights, when I came on watch at midnight, I had been intrigued by one star. It was just rising in the SSE, and really appeared to be pulsing red and green when it was low to the horizon. It turned out to be Canopus, an orange-white super giant, the second brightest star in the sky after Sirius, the Dog Star. It is 100 light years away and 2000 times brighter than our sun. It is the principal star in Carina, the Keel. But, most important to sailors, it was the focus of the huge Chinese multiple-fleet circumnavigation so well described in the book “1421″ by Gavin Menzies. They were plotting the position of Canopus to improve their navigation expertise in the Southern Hemisphere.

All is well.