Author: Ulrich Fingscheidt

Just after my daily phonecall with Kirsten, I crossed the line. If all goes to plan, I will stay on the southern hemisphere for nearly two years.

A bit more wind and waves, 15 kn, gusts 21kn. After the next two days of stronger winds the wind will slowly turn a bit more easterly. I am done with upwind sailing for this trip! I entered a new timezone: GMT -6 (MESZ -8). My latitude is N 0° 49,920. Equator, here I come!

In the afternoon I had a visitor flying circles around Easy. Then he lost interest and flew off. At night, I am frequently surrounded by birds, making funny noises and sometimes catching fish.

I am still waiting for the wind to shift south. It has been very stable during the last two days, but still blowing from the wrong direction. Teaches me a lesson in patience.

It will be 2-3 days of working my way south, until I will hit more favourable winds. Today, I passed the Isla Malpela, a mountain in the middle of th Pacific Ocean. Besides that, I have not seen land or a ship since three days.

If it could only stay like this for the whole trip. It won’t.

It is a gray day. Rain, no sun at all. It will take some more days until I will hit some wind. No ships around, so I can finally get some sleep.

Before I started feeling seasick, I cooked myself veggie meal. Delicious.

Day 1 is over. 77 nm, 1,8% of the whole passage. I am at the end of the continental shelf. A steep step from 50m depth to 1000m. I was just in the cockpit to take a photo of the scandalous amount of plastic rubbish for you. The Gulf of Panama is a dumpster. Half of the plastic waste it is small water plastic bottles. Some people are so completely ignorant. No photo of this rubbish, since I heard and then saw a whale. You will need some phantasy to spot it on the photo. Have a nice Wednesday. Ulrich