Caduceus - Cape Town to St Helena Day 9 - East to West

Position 19:38.40 S 001:27.46 W
Date 2359 (UTC+2) Friday 27 January 2017
Distance run in 24hrs 154nm over the ground, 150nm through the water
Passage total 1376nm over the ground, 1311nm through the water
Distance to go 334nm
Planned distance Cape Town to St Helena 1697nm

At 0555 (UTC +2) we crossed the Greenwich Meridian, not quite as momentous as crossing the equator, especially as you can do this twice in one rotation of the M25 Motorway around London, but nevertheless a sailing milestone. The last time that we crossed a major meridian was in 2014 in between Tonga and Fiji and on that occasion, we lost a day. At the present time, we could do with losing a couple of hours as the westing that we have made has put sunset and dawn some way out from the natural way of things. We will reset the clocks when we reach St Helena to UTC, British Winter Time. Thinking of winter, it is at last getting noticeably warmer.

We had our first proper squall of the passage this morning. There was no rain but the wind climbed from 15 to 30 knots with gusts hitting 35 knots. As the direction was from astern and it did not last long there was no concern. It would have been a different story with a spinnaker or cruising chute up. Other than that, we continue to amble along under poled out genoa, and main when the wind is not directly over the stern. If we are to arrive in daylight, we must slow down somewhat; this seems perverse when usually the aim is to go as fast as practicable.