Forteleza to Cayenne…..Day 3
July 11th, 2013 (Northern & Western Hemisphere) Time: -3 on GMT
The Amazon Between our hulls?
We\’ve been motoring for the last 27 hours. NO WIND. The prediction says that in about 5-7 hours it is supposed to come up to 8-14 off our stern.
If so, we may be able to sail. The key feature however is the current. We seem to have lost it for the moment. I suspect that despite being 250 miles from the mouth of the Amazon River Delta, it is effecting us. First, the water isn\’t as clear as it was yesterday and the natural fanning movement of the water as it comes out of the delta would seemingly \”check\” the positive current. There\’s nothing to do about it and I\’ll get a clue if my guestimation is correct once we\’re on the north side of the delta. So will all apologies to the singer/songwriter, Paula Cole. I paraphrase her line. \”I feel like the Amazon is flowing between our hulls!\”
If you want to google the song. Beware, it\’s very racy – \”Feelin\’ Love\” by Paula Cole.
Yesterday on a technical note. We usually use what is called the Navigate Function on our auto pilot when motoring. It keeps us on an absolutely straight line.
We noticed yesterday that using this feature, we were overall staying in a straight line, but rhythmically making large \”S\” turns. We\’d turn 20 deg to port, then 20 deg to starboard of our intended course, weaving back and forth. At first, I thought this might be the mighty Amazon at work. It IS the largest river by volume in the world and produces just under 10% of the worlds fresh water. Therefore it\’s effect IS going to be felt far offshore. However, that wasn\’t it. I re-calibrated our electronic compass and voila, the \”S\” turns stopped. It\’s just another mystery of Marine Electronics. Nothing new!
I\’ll shut down each motor in the next few hours to do the full checks or oil, coolant, transmission fluid and the ubiquitous fuel filters. Despite having had the fuel polished in Richards Bay, the port tank has algae in it. It\’s all dead as we \”biocided\” it, but it will have to work through the systems filters to get rid of it. I\’ll most likely polish it again in Trinidad; just to be safe. \”Polishing\” for those of you who don\’t know is cleaning the fuel via multiple pass filtration. This is usually done by a company that has specialized equipment for the job.
It\’s exercise day and other than that, we\’re very glad for the air conditioned stateroom so we can sleep in cool dry comfort!
NOTE: I sent the position report out this morning and it came back with an error from Winlink. Hence, those of you on the list may have gotten it (per their note), but the website was most likely NOT updated? If someone could let me know, I\’d appreciate a short note to my sailmail address.
Day 3, 162 motoring miles. 468 miles to Cayenne.
Thanks,
KIT,
Scott and Stargazer Nik