Crossing the Equator, northbound!

We crossed the equator heading north, just after midnight on April 9, 2010. Here is a photo of our GPS. We crossed the equator going south almost exactly eight years ago. (April 8, 2002.)  It is hard to believe that Wilhelm has been in the Southern Hemisphere for eight years.

Do We Look Tired?

Here we are hand steering for 6 days after our autopilot failed. Rob rigged a seat across the cockpit so we did not have to stand all the time, and we took shifts: 1 1/2 hours steering; 3 hours off for 24 hours a day for six days.

We could see the lights of Salvador from 70 miles at sea the night before we arrived - a very welcome sight.  Chuck is steering as we approach Salvador, our first landfall in Brazil, on February 11.

After a little sleep, we celebrated Chuck's 65 birthday on February 12 with some other yachties who had made the crossing from Cape Town a few days before our boat.

Chuck has now flown back to the USA.  The two of us (Rob and Natalie) will continue our journey, grateful for Chuck's help across the South Atlantic.

Sailing toward St. Helena

Our 5th day at sea and we have not sighted another ship during this entire time. At the moment, the sea is calm and the winds are about 13 knots from the SE. We have been flying our new red and white gennaker for 2 days and it is carrying us confidently and comfortably toward our destination. The first two days were rough and stormy; we sailed with two reefs in the main and reduced jib in gale conditions (wearing foul weather gear round the clock). After that, we reached the southeast trade winds and have had comfortable sailing since.
We bought two new sails in Cape Town: a jib and a gennaker. Both replaced sails that had not been properly sized for Wilhelm. She was like a girl with two dresses: one that was too tight (jib) and one that was too loose (gennaker). Now she is the belle of the ball, with two beautiful new sails that fit just right.
Thanks to advances in technology that seem remarkable to those of our age, we can post this entry while we are underway - transmitted through our high frequency (SSB/ham) radio through various connections and posted on the internet.
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Update after 1 day at sea

We spent our first night at anchor at Dassen Island, surrounded by 20 local fishing boats like this one. We could not sail our course toward St. Helena, because the weather window did not open as early as we hoped so we headed north and tucked into this anchorage. Today the winds are better and off we go.

On the way, we sailed by Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 18 of the 27 years he spent in prison. Please see Invictus. Amazing that he did not become bitter.

1670 nautical miles to St. Helena. (Amazingly, we have internet on this island. From now on, our communications from sea will be text only, no photos.)