Blue Blob

Day 65

Noon Position: 49 47S 50 44W

Course/Speed: NE5

Wind: NW13

Sail: Big Genoa out full

Bar: 1003

Sea: W6

Sky: Clear

Cabin Temp: 60

Water Temp: 46

Miles last 24-hours: 161

Miles since departure: 8409

I call them Blue Blobs, the windless regions one has to contend with in sailing from here to there. Granted, on my weather app, they are more purple at their worst, but Blue Blob has stuck.

I saw this one coming and had a plan. I’d sail up to 50S on my now usual course NE, and then I’d pole out the headsails and run underneath the blob, following the wind as it gently backed from W into the SW over the couple days it will take this one to die of exasperation, unloved and unmourned.

Good plan, and I made the necessary sail and course changes just after the noon log.

But my plan failed to account for one thing: forecasts change, especially “forecasts” that describe current conditions. This one now gives me much lighter wind than I’d counted on. Instead of W 10 – 15 knots, I’m getting W 5 – 7. Mo bobs and dips; the sails kerfuffle about, helplessly grasping at breeze that isn’t there. As we roll, everything that can shift and bang shifts and bangs. Imagine sitting in a band’s percussion section during the world’s worst earthquake.

Somehow we make 2 – 3 knots of easting anyway. Amazingly Monte can kind of hold a course.

But no one is happy.

I’m half tempted to turn north. There’s enough wind to make a gentle few knots quietly with wind on the beam, but overnight wind goes SW, and by morning we’d have the same problem.

Given the bags of wind we had on the west side of South America, I’m a little surprised by how shifty wind is on the east side. Yes, I understand the concept of a wind shadow and now think I should have stayed south until we were beyond it.

But last night showed what can be, even here. By 2am we had a steady 30 gusting nearly 40 from the NW. Mo is so quiet below, I didn’t realize the wind had built that much or that quickly…except that as I snoozed I could feel I was sleeping more on the cupboard than the bunk.

The main, already double reefed, had to come down, always tricky with strong wind aft of the beam. But down she came easy, and with a double reefed working jib we still clipped along at over 7 knots till morning.

A mere 12 hours later, this.