Location 39° 09S, 108° 28W
Wednesday 10.31.2007

The Schooner Maggie B was at 39° 09S, 108° 28W at noon on October 31st. We are still blasting along at 8.9 knots with 20-25 knots of wind on our beam. We are right on the Great Circle Route to Puerto Montt. We made 217 NM in the last 24 hours. The skies are clearing and the waves are settling in a bit more regularly, though still with a SW swell against a Northerly wind-generated waves. We have come 3336 NM from Rangiroa and have 1595 to go to Puerto Montt.

It looks as if we will have two more days of this great breeze. Our high is steadying into place ahead of us and we are running into it — our barometer is up to 1022 Mb. Another high looks to develop behind and below us, but we may slip through the gap between the two before it overlays us and stops our progress. We’ll have some tactical decisions to make on November 2nd, at which time we’ll have only a little more than 1000 NM to go.

We are now on GMT -8, the same as California (give or take DST). While we are sliding Waaaaay South, it is amazing to us that if we were in the US, we would be about crossing the Utah/Colorado border now. Puerto Montt is at about the same longitude as New York City. A usually successful “bar bet” is asking what South American city is directly south of Miami. The answer is: none — they are all to the East. When we go around the Horn, we will be about as far East as Halifax.

Robert is earning a new name: Splash Gordon. He seems to have unerring ability to arrive on deck just as the biggest splash within hours zeros in. This morning he went out for his watch at 0900, having been informed by Kath that there had been no spray for an hour. On emerging in his foulie bottoms, to put on his top and harness on deck, he got the Three Bucket Special square on his head. Like the candidate for Dial soap in the commercials, nobody wants to stand near him on deck.

All is well.

What We Are Reading en route to Chile

Hannah - Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Robert - A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Kath - A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

Frank - Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay