Sailing South, passing Vitoria Banks and getting into deeper oceanic waters.

All canvas set

Another warm day of light winds that made us work a bit on timing, bracing setting and taking away sails, together with jibing and changing our course a couple of times. All trying to catch the maximum breeze possible, but anyway we had to start engine again, and it has been running for most of the day, until night-time when it goes off and we can sail with all our canvas set but the Studding Sails.

deeper water

Experiencing 4 mts of gentle S-ly swell (with aperiod of 12 sec) we passed by the latitudes of the Vitoria Banks. This long swell indicates that somewhere further South wind has been really blowing. Even if we are around 130 nm from the coast, the waters under us are just 50 mts. But that tells us that soon we will leave behind those relatively shallow waters and get into deeper oceanic area, as those banks are the last to encounter on our way South along the Brazilian coast.

wild life

Other activities on board during this calm and warm day, were related with the on going maintenance and talks/lectures program. Jordi and Chris repeated their introductory talk about the trip, the 400 anniversary of Cape Horn discovery and a bit of history of the Cape Horners Society; while the permanent crew started their educational tasks on sail handling, ropes and setting sail.

We also had a couple of interesting wildlife sightings today, as a couple of Skuas were flying around. And a Minke whale surfaced close to the ship. Both species probably migrating Southwards to colder and richer waters. In fact we are sailing along a main migratory route for lots of birds and mammals on their seasonal trips between tropical and temperate or polar waters.