(January 3, 2018) Finally, we have a nice angle of sail. No more rolling and no more pounding of downwind sailing with the unaligned wind and waves. Waking up, I found myself well rested and fully charged. What deep heavenly sleep can do for me!
According to our Garmin Charts, there can be a strong current running in this area. John didn’t think it would affect us much. We learned it the hard way. We have been sailing against the Equatorial Counter-Current and the Guiana Current. These currents flow toward West and North Westerly. It reduced our sailing speed 2-3 knots. Because of it, we were sailing 3-5 knots instead of our normal speed (6-8 knots) with 15-20 knots of wind.
After 16 hours of slow sailing, we passed the counter-current zone and have finally returned to our normal speed. It looks like we will be arriving before dark. Another 70 miles (about 112 kilometers) to go, equal to a half day sailing!!!!
Kay Chung @0800 UTC on Thursday, January 04, 2018
GPS Position @N05.42/W51.42