Forteleza to Cayenne, French Guyana…..Day 4

Forteleza to Cayenne, French Guyana…..Day 4

July 12th, 2013 Time: -3 on GMT

Yesterday we just motored. The water has not turned Amazon green, but I suspect the south side of the \”fan\” was negating the nice current push we were getting.
Today, we\’re on the north side of the \”fan\” that is the Amazon\’s outflow and we\’re getting a great push. With very low RPM on the engines, we\’re maintaining 8++ knots.
We are also again on the underwater escarpment of South American continental shelf. The water goes from 10,000 feet (3000 meters) to only 600 feet (>200 meters) in a very short distance. Hence, the water stacks up against the underwater shelf and gives us this great push northward.

Last night we had very little rain, but did see lightening in the distance. I heard distant thunder only once.

Every 24 hours (which will be shortly), we change over our auto pilot hydraulic pumps and turn the engines off (usually one at a time) to do the engine checks.
I check the oil, coolant, transmission fluid, hoses, belts and fuel filters. This gives great piece of mind and yesterday all was well. Our new digital engine temperature and oil pressure gauges are a nice \”quick check\” which we can read out on any of the seven displays around the boat. I keep the idiot buzzers/lights ON with the engines as they would be a first alert if we lost oil pressure or had high coolant temperatures. Once every few weeks I also operate the seacocks that provide salt water to the heat exchanged cooling system to make sure they are operationa. As we\’re doing the motoring tango, I just thought I mention this for cruiser crowd who often ask me what my protocols are.

Yesterday was exercise day and we\’re getting fit again, yeah!

We\’ve 300 miles to go to Cayenne and hopefully we\’ll get some sailing in. In any event, we expect to be there on Sunday before mid day.

At least the conditions are nice and the ocean, it\’s moods, sunrises and sunsets – beautiful.
KIT,
Scott and Nikki