Day 114, Year 6 Atlantic Passage, Day 11-Close to the Equator
Date: Tuesday, February 15, 2011 (1730 UTC)
Weather: Mostly Overcast; SSE/ESE/S 11-14 w/periods 14-18
Air Temperature: 81 degrees F (night and day)
Latitude: 00 50.099 S
Longitude: 022 51.699 W
Miles Traveled: 1408
Miles to Go: 2,506
Location: Passage from St. Helena to Caribbean (Grenada)

Windbird is going to stay true to form and cross the equator in the dark. Our first crossing entering the Southern Hemisphere was on Tuesday, March 14, 2006. We would arrive in the Galapagos the next morning and surprisingly the nighttime temperature was cooler by a couple degrees than it is here but the daytime temperature was a degree warmer than today. But we had bright sunshine then, and it was totally overcast today and not as warm as usual. The seas were calm, the skies were clear with a full moon, and we had NO WIND. It was a beautiful evening and a serene crossing.

Our second crossing was on a Monday, October 20, 2008, at 3:30 am. We were on our way to Singapore and the weather was anything but serene. We literally had fireworks in the sky as we crossed the equator going from South to North. There was thunder, lightening, torrential rain, NO WIND, and it was hot (I didn’t report the temperature).

Crossing number three was on Sunday, March 21, of last year, again in the middle of the night (3:48 am). We would arrive in the Addu Atoll in the Maldives that same morning. It was hot (again, I didn’t record the temperature) and we had NO WIND as we once again entered the Southern Hemisphere.

So it will be interesting to see exactly what time we cross the equator for the fourth time. Will we have NO WIND or we will sail across this time? Will it be overcast or will the stars and the moon be visible? Today has been a strange day weather-wise. We have had a few squalls with drizzle and steel gray dark clouds have been lurking to port from the N to the E and behind us to the S all day. Until just now. It is starting to clear and the steel gray clouds have turned into puffy white ones in a beautiful blue sky. Interesting. Traversay III was talking to Bahati on the radio this morning and Larry referred the bubble of wind “up north”-that’s us. Traversay is two days behind us but only a moving about 100 miles a day. The last couple of days we have averaged 150 miles a day. We have slowed down considerably today, but we do still have wind. So Windbird’s “wind bubble” is headed for the equator.