Hello from the Northern Hemisphere! Flyer and her crew of four humans and one feline crossed the middle of the planet yesterday just before noon local time at 145 and a half degrees west. As the boys insightfully pointed out, it was really cool to cross the equator at mid-day and see the sun a bit north of overhead, given we are now in the northern hemisphere spring! Conditions were light, with 10-15 knots of wind from the east and mostly clear skies overhead.
We celebrated our second crossing of the adventure with another toast to King Neptune. As is tradition, we shared with him our libations out of thanks for bringing us safely thus far and for continuing to bless us with agreeable sailing conditions henceforth to Oahu. Pelle was once again feted, this time a little more against her will (she was likely roused from yet another nap).
It was also really exciting to cross the equator in daylight this time. Our last crossing was at night, which not only makes it harder to get a sense of one’s place, but it makes it almost impossible to see the equatorial line! The boys had done their research and had rightly learned that the line is only visible in a narrow spectrum, which happens to be visible by cats. So James spent the last several days developing an app for iOS that allowed his phone to capture a photo of the line as we crossed. Kids these days! Turns out the line is yellow, which matches what we have on our charts.
Within an hour of crossing we were drenched in a lovely mid-day shower and Kristen and I took the opportunity to bathe while we sailed Flyer through the blustery daytime squall. The last several days have been spent trying to navigate quickly developing rain cells, hoping to avoid them and the disruption they cause to our sailing conditions. This one was unavoidable, but we were incredibly thankful for the free bath and cool-down! It’s been hot lately.
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