Change is Comin

Day 164/42

Noon Position: 03 53S 149 46W

Course/Speed: NNE6+

Wind: SE14. An hour later EXS 20 – 25

Bar: 1011, falling

Sea: E4

Sky: White cumulus cover the sky. An hour later, low and gray squall clouds.

Cabin Temperature: 89

Water Temperature: 84

Sail: All plain sail;

Noon-to-Noon Miles Made Good: 145

Miles this leg: 5,221

Avg. Miles this leg: 124

Miles since departure: 22,326

Prior to noon, I had nothing new to report. It had been a lovely day in the trades. But it’s been that for a week. How many odes to the color blue can one write?

Then the barometer dropped and the sky came down and the wind went to up, all without my noticing.

I was concentrating on working a sight when the wind indicator went to 20 knots and Mo laid right over. Both main and working jib were full at the time, as they have been since well before the Cook Islands.

When I came on deck the scene was like that of the southern ocean, except for the distinct lack of cold. Low and gray in all directions. Line squalls to windward. Ahead and astern, no horizon due to its being covered by a wall of rain.

I made my way to the mast and tucked a reef in the main. Back at the cockpit, I tucked two in the working jib. Now the wind indicator was at 25. I went back to the mast and tucked a second reef in the main.

This after days of wind in the teens.

Two hours later, the sky has lifted a bit and reveals mountainous cumulonimbus to windward.

I may have a busy evening in store for me.

—

We’re approaching the end of the southern trades. Within two to four degrees of latitude, they’ll have petered out entirely. This may be the bellwether.

—

It has been so gentle of late that I can work on deck all day without fouling up my glasses. Not today. Ten minutes at the mast and this is what I get.