No sea turtles or dolphins today. Nothing exciting. So I am going to talk about the weather. When sailing, weather - especially the wind - is all important. Santa Cruz island is 1047 NM south of Huatulco heading at 155 degrees (that' our rhumb line). We can point within about 60 degrees of that. Wind that is coming from anywhere between 95 and 215 pushes us off the rhumb line. Not a terrible thing, but it means we have to sail farther. Wind outside of that range is good. We simply point the boat at the Galapagos and sail.
We constantly monitor the wind using the incredible array of electronics aboard QuickStar plus the good old eyeball. Wind velocity also matters. 15 knots is nice. Below 10 is slow. 25 is fun, but it wouold be too taxing to have that all the time. Above 30 starts getting a bit wild (but manageable!).
Then there are the rain clouds. They are all over the place in this vast sea. We have an idea of where the big systems are (best sources are amateur ham radio operators whom we contact with the SSB radio - Pete knows them and knows how and when to contact them). But the little cells can be anywhere. We see them about ten miles out on the radar, then decide whether to try and dodge around and avoid getting rained on, or plow through. Peter gets a big grin on his face when we are in a good wind, and and even bigger grin when there's rain involved. So you can guess how often we dodge.
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