At about 0623 Zulu on November 10, 2022, I crossed the equator southbound so I’m now officially in the Southern Hemisphere. It was an hour before dawn so I waited until the sun was up for a ceremony of giving a dram of whiskey to Neptune for continued safe passage as I had done at other significant milestones on this voyage. I made a short video of this one which I’ll post at some point.

Thursday also marked the day the sailing weather finally turned favorable. For the last several days I had 13-15 kt winds at 150-160 degrees True. With those winds I couldn’t really sail my desired course of 205-210 degrees, I had to sail off to the west which was problematic because I anticipated ocean currents that would also push me west, perhaps too far west to make the eastern bulge of the Brazilian coast. For that reason one guidebook said to cross the equator no further west than 28 degrees west longitude. I ended up crossing at about 29 degrees 50 minutes west. But that day the winds finally rotated to the east, to 100-120 degrees as expected with SE trade winds. I am now comfortably sailing a beam reach on the course I want making good speed so the current push west is no longer an issue. The weather forecast models I use were also wrong about when the winds would rotate east.

Just north of the equator is the Saô Pedro e Saô Paulo Archipelago, a small group of rocky outcroppings in the ocean far from anywhere. Even so, it is a occupied Brazilian outpost for maintaining the navigation light and I suppose other activites. Anyway, I made a diversion in my sailing route to pass very close by and get some great photos, especially of the waves crashing against the rocks erupting in geysers of water higher than the top of the lighthouse. There was a boat there, tied to  a mooring buoy. I’m not sure if it was supply boat or just a fishing boat. Before I could even see the place over the horizon I heard radio conversations on marine channel 16 in Portuguese, I assume between the boat and the shore facility. It’s a rare faraway place you can’t see via any tourist conveyance so that’s the main reason I made a point of sailing there.