King Neptune granted me permission to cross the equator yesterday evening, and even gave me a gift to help me on my way.
All day yesterday, I had been getting wind from the NE, which was wrong. It was supposed to be just East, from 90 degrees, but I was getting wind from 50 degrees. Even with my NW course, it meant that the wind was forward of the beam- my apparent wind was 70-80 degrees. I had the sails sheeted in, the boat was heeled over, and while the boat wasn’t pounding or anything, it was still wrong. But it was what it was, so I made the best of it.
At 6:27pm yesterday, I crossed the equator, took the obligatory photo of the GPS proving it, shared some rum with Neptune, then went below to enter it in the log. When I came back on deck just a few minutes later, everything had changed! The wind had veered back to East, making my apparent wind at 110 degrees, properly aft of the beam. So I eased the sails, the boat flattened out and sped up, and all was right with the world again. Welcome back to the north!
One temporary setback is the loss of my good current. It turns due east along the equator, which doesn’t help me, but doesn’t hurt either. I should start catching the favorable northbound Guyana current when I get to latitude 2, maybe tonight or tomorrow morning.
4/3 8am 0.59N 44.19W 3138nm gone, 2337nm to go