Dra­ke-Pas­sa­ge – 31 Janu­ary – 03 Febru­ar 2018

Sat
3 Feb
2018

31 Janu­ary – 03 Febru­ar 2018 – We have seen a lot of water and many, many waves sin­ce we left Ant­ar­c­ti­ca 3 days ago. On the first day at sea, we could enjoy the rather rare phe­no­me­non of a „Dra­ke Lake“. No wind at all!

It was pret­ty clear that this would not last fore­ver.

Accor­ding to the fore­cast, we could hope for one more day with litt­le wind, but that’s not what we got. Sin­ce the day befo­re yes­ter­day, we have most­ly had around 30 knots of wind (force 7), some­ti­mes more (up to 40 knots, a solid force 8, occa­sio­nal­ly gus­ting up to force 9). The bad thing is: the wind comes almost con­stant­ly from the wrong direc­tion, from north­nor­thwest. No sai­ling wind that makes us fly across the Dra­ke, but nasty head­winds that slow us down to a frus­t­ra­ting 3-4 knots, making the boat move a lot at the same time. Well, it is not one of the­se real­ly hea­vy storms that the Dra­ke-Pas­sa­ge is so noto­rious for, but still it is a phe­no­me­non how the wind keeps coming per­sis­t­ent­ly from the „wron“ direc­tion in this area which is known for quick wea­ther chan­ges!? Well, is is as it is, we have to live with it, alt­hough enthu­si­asm about the pre­sent wea­ther and sea con­di­ti­ons is not unli­mi­t­ed. Some of us actual­ly dis­co­ver that they are born sea­men, while others keep hol­ding on to a bucket. Just for safe­ty reasons, of cour­se.

Gal­lery – Dra­ke-Pas­sa­ge – 31 Janu­ary – 03 Febru­ar 2018

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

It is still about 170 nau­ti­cal miles to Cape Hoorn. That makes for 34 hours sai­ling time assum­ing that we can main­tain a speed of 5 knots. In this case, we will be near land in the night from Sun­day to Mon­day. But often, we are slower. We are kree­ping towards Cape Hoorn met­re by met­re, and we will all be hap­py when we hear someone shou­ting „land“!