Northbound

Tomorrow morning, we leave South African waters for the tiny, isolated island of St. Helena, some 1700 nautical miles north-northwest of here.  If you paid attention in history class, you'll remember that this is the island that Napoleon was exiled to.  To this day, lacking an airport, it is one of the most remote populated islands on the planet, and relies on regular supply ships from Cape Town to provide its residents food and fuel and other items.  To put this remoteness in context, every island we visited in the South Pacific either had an airport or was within a day's sail of an airport.  It's a bit disconcerting to know that once we leave South Africa, we will be more on our own than at any other time of our trip. Happily, the South Atlantic is known for its bucolic weather.

It should be a relatively easy run, with the winds behind the beam; the South Atlantic high may give us some windless days, but the wind and seas should be moderate as we head northward to the equator.

You can track our progress using either of the two links on the left-hand side of this page.

After a brief layover in St. Helena, we plan to make our longest non-stop sail of our circumnavigation, about 3700 nautical miles to one of the Windward Islands, that mark the southern edge of the Caribbean Sea.