Day 350, Year 5 Passage to the Barren Islands, Day 2
Date: Monday, October 11, 2010
Weather: Partly Sunny, Winds Backing10-12
Latitude: 17 01.886 S
Longitude: 43 39.937 E
Miles to Go: 99

What a beautiful, calm day of sailing we have had today. There are no seas to speak of and the wind has stayed between ten to fifteen knots just behind the beam. We can see nothing but ocean in any direction. We passed a number of well lit fishing boats just off Cape St. Andre last night, but other than that we have only seen a couple of birds and the little white triangle on the horizon that is Constance. These are the kind of days that make you want to sail forever. This day will end but the memory of such a peaceful passage day will linger. Tonight we will once again have light winds and will have to motor for a few hours before the wind returns. For most of the day yesterday and today the winds have been from the NW, but as the sun dips lower in the sky in late afternoon the winds move counter-clockwise from NW to SW to SE by 3 am and then to NE in the early morning. Then around 10:30 am we get the NW wind which is perfect for our sail south. Yesterday we made the decision to change our destination from a straight run across the Mozambique Channel to Richards Bay to go south along Madagascar’s west coast to the Barren Islands. This was always in the plans if the weather didn’t look good for continuing across the Channel and now we know we want to pull in and wait for predicted high seas to settle before continuing on. So the ‘Miles to Go’ have changed dramatically since yesterday from more than a 1,000 miles to Richards Bay to just under a 100 miles to the Barrens. Constance is still sailing with us but since Odulphus stopped for the night along the coast they will be a day or more behind us depending on whether they continue to stop each night.