The Other Side of the Mountain

Nov 15, 2017
Day 18
Noon Position: 7 29.17N 122 40.90W 

Course/Speed: SW 4

Wind: SE 9

Sail: Main and big genoa out

Bar: 1014

Sea: SE 3

Sky: Clear, squalls just ahead

Cabin Temp: 87

Water Temp: 84 
Miles last 24-hours: 97

Miles since departure: 2193

The image that I had been entertaining these last, interminably muggy days was that on the other side of the mountain, billowing trade wind cumulus would march over a crystalline ocean, and the wind would blow cool from abaft the beam, and there would be a stationary barge hull up just there, and it would sell us a burger and beer so cold it would crack your teeth.

Whereas, what we have on the other side of the mountain is more of what we had, except with a south wind.

We cruised slowly but steadily all night on a light easterly. The sky shown. Orion, reclining upon the sea, levitated into the heavens without waking, not even to roll over. Later, a sliver moon the color of ivory.

At dawn the horizon to windward was black. By mid morning the wind had backed into the southeast and then south without so much as slacking off. That’s all there was to the transition.

We fell in with the line of squalls by noon. I began to shoot a time-lapse video entitled “Going Into and Out of a Squall.” Except six hours later we’ve not come out. 

Rain. Heavy at times. I’ve harvested buckets of fresh water from the main cover cradle. It still tastes a too much like new sail cloth to be drunk but will be good for washing. 

And with that we have broken through the Doldrums and have entered the southern hemisphere (from the perspective of weather).
Mo is currently hauled as close to the wind as ever she will go. The immediate task is to make as much southing as we can while the winds are light and the sea relatively flat. Later, when winds go to 20, I want the option to ease off.

We have passed the first gate. Now we begin a chapter called “On Port Tack,” on which we will remain for some 2000 miles and more. But I’ve expanded my daily weather charts to include Cape Horn, because the next gate is that much closer.