[password] brucelaura
[position] 8 24S 18 56W
[status] Wednesday, February 12, 2:00PM
Day 6 Give us this day our daily jibe.
We are unable to sail our rhum line as it is too deep down wind and we have to keep 20-30 degrees off in order to keep wind in the sails as we get pushed around by waves. So we are zig zagging across our course line and jibing each day. This adds miles to our passage. I calculated that for every 100 miles we sail, we make 94 miles towards our destination. We can live with that, especially when we are churning out 155 miles each day.
We were hailed on the radio today by a fellow traveler sailing about 8 miles from us on passage from Ascension Island to Brazil. It's an American flag sailboat that we met briefly in St. Helena. The owner and mate caught our attention for two reasons: 1. they are both black (African America- not sure which is the preferred adjective), which you don't see very often in cruising circles. 2. The owner of the boat has only one hand, giving new dimension to the term 'single handed sailor'. We met another one-armed sailor in Chagos who was from mainland China, another demographic not much represented in the cruising world. The majority of boats out here are European, Australian, American, Canadian, and New Zealand. This Chinese sailor is a professional yacht racer and had sailed solo in Trans Atlantic races. Now he's taking his non-sailor girlfriend around the world in his spiffy new catamaran.
And my point is...... Just that we have met so many fascinating people in our travels. Friendships are facilitated by our common goal to survive cruising! Many friends who have retired from sailing say that the comraderie of this unique tribe is what they miss most. I know that will be true for us.
Meanwhile, we are 1000 miles from the equator and things are heating up!
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Sent from Iridium Mail & Web.

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