Lat: 00 09.640′ S
Lon: 36 26.213′ W

I heard on the radio the other morning that the moon is closer to the earth than it’s been for a long time (20 years?) and that it’s called a super-moon. It’s also almost full, and the two effects combined have made it so big and bright that last night the sky was blue even in the middle of the night — dark blue overhead and light blue at the horizon. The days have been warm, but the beautiful moonlit nights have reminded me of sailing on Galveston Bay back in the 90’s when Wes and I were working by day and learning to sail at night. Ever since learning to sail that way, I’ve always loved night sailing on pleasant nights. The moonlight makes a glittering white path from the horizon just beneath the moon directly to you while you’re sitting on deck enjoying the cool breeze and gentle motion. Lots of things can be more alarming or dangerous at night, but beautiful starry or moonlit nights make up for it.

With the light winds, sailing close-hauled or close-reaching has actually been nice since the calm seas and our relatively low speeds mean that we’re not pounding. The increased apparent wind make things more pleasant on board and helps our speed as well. We’re motor-sailing about 1/4-1/3 of each day when the wind gets really light and are still managing to make 95-100 nm/day. So far we haven’t see the typical ITCZ in terms of no wind and squalls. We’ve been able to sail virtually all of the time, although our speed has really benefitted from using the engines. Luckily, the days have been so nice since we parted with the coast of Brazil that we haven’t really minded the slow speeds.

Today we sailed under the sun (across the latitude at which it is directly overhead). It crosses the equator at midnight tonight making the vernal equinox, and we’re due to cross just ahead of it, sometime this afternoon. With the sun now south of us as we head north, our solar panels, on the aft end of the boat, should start producing more energy as they won’t be shaded by sails part of the day.

On an offbeat note, when we got hit by the strong squall our first night out from Recife, I didn’t close the small hatch above our berth before running on deck to help. It’s only about 16″x8″, but the rain was so intense that even that small hatch partially opened resulted in our entire queen-sized bunk being soaked. We slept in the other (starboard) forward berth instead and found that we both considered it more comfortable due to firmer padding. In all this time, we’ve never slept there but thanks to that squall we’re now sleeping on the starboard side when we’re off watch at night.