Wednesday, February 09, 2000--Light Winds

Source: Sam Low

"In the afternoon we saw a large towering cumulus to the North," says Nainoa, "which indicated a probable breakdown in the trades."

Later in the afternoon squalls started to come through with a lot of rain but little wind. We had three squalls before sunset. After each of them there would be either no wind or a little wind but from the North so we would move for a time and then stall in our tracks, a pattern that Nainoa calls "jump sailing."

The pattern continued into the evening and morning of today, Wednesday--and at about 11 a.m. we remained virtually stalled in very light winds.

Shortly after sunrise a crew meeting was held aboard the canoe. Shantell presented today's navigation report: "We were at 10 degrees, 51 minutes S at sunrise," she says, "at about 10.5 miles W of our course line which is pretty much right on it. Everyone is doing a really good job of steering and in spite of the setbacks from the squalls we are doing very well."

At noon, Nainoa orders the largest sail possible bent on for the mizzen to take advantage of what little wind there is and we fix awnings over our decks to protect us from the blasting heat of this almost windless day.