LATITUDE: 00-39.03N; LONGITUDE: 148-59.82W
COURSE: 001T; SPEED: 4.6
DISTANCE TRAVELED: 960m
DISTANCE TO KONA, HAWAII: 1354m
24 HOUR RUN: 129m
Yup, we did! At 05:28 am (15:28 Zulu) this morning we crossed the Equator at longitude 149.00.55. No fireworks or bands playing, but we did celebrate with a glass of grog. We drank the very good 7-year old Cuban rum (had to - can't take it to the States); Neptune got a big shot of Tahiti rum - not very good, but expensive! It is nice to be back in the Northern Hemisphere.
Our weather has been good, but our winds are lightening up some. Hopefully, Neptune appreciated the rum and will give the wind a boost for us. We figure we need to make more than 130 miles a day so that we can be in Hawaii by Thanksgiving. Better get moving!
The next big leg of our trip is to the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), which is about 480 miles from the Equator. The ITCZ is where the southern and northern trade winds converge and can have extensive clouds and rain squalls - the doldrums. We are hoping for a quick easy trip through the ITCZ - just like on our trip south.
Today, we are having a very nice relaxing day. We have been at sea for 7 days and are both doing very well - so is Moondance.
Except... we discovered an installation feature/flaw, which surprised both of us. Doug did such an an excellent job on all of the integrations and installations on Moondance, we were shocked to find something that didn't work as expected. We cannot run our generator (which needs to run to make water and charge the batteries) on a starboard tack when the seas are big. The exhaust submerges and the generator has to work too hard and overheats. So, we are having to run the big engine to charge our batteries. Our solar panels and wind generator are doing a great job, so we haven't had to run the engine very often. To make water, we need flat seas or to head south for a couple of hours. Hopefully, that won't be necessary - we have lots of water on board. Doug says it will be an easy fix while we are in Hawaii - put it on the list.
Hope we don't find any more features or flaws along the way - hah!
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1 comment:
Hope you don`t have any other issues can you still see evergreen in the distance just in case maybe neptune would have been happier with the good stuff be safe Love Mom
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