Update, day 64: chilly !
Ok, it's seriously COLD down here now. I have 1100 miles to go until the Horn but at 54 degrees south I am only a thousand miles from Antartica and with the southerly winds blowing it feels like I'm skimming the sea ice as I go by. I'll soon be even closer as rounding Cape Horn forces me to pass through the narrow Drake Passage, the 450 mile wide straight that separates the tip of the Andes from the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. One downside to my 100% Natural Energy campaign is that I don't have a diesel heater like some of the boats and I don't have a lump of cast iron that heats up the boat everytime I charge the batteries. In fact, I beyond warm clothes, hot soup and thermal patches that I stick to my base layers I have no other sources of heat on board. Thankfully Gill make excellent warm jackets and trousers but I still go bue around the edges sometimes. Thankfully the wind is pretty stable and I can make short dashes into the cockpit to make small adjustments to the trim in the sails before ducking for cover again. I certainly envy the guys in the new boats who can trim their sails while wearing slippers and pajamas! Aside from the temperature the only problem I have now is the computer keeps suggesting I put up sails I no longer have! Eric is going to run right past me without any problem but sadly there's nothing I can do for the next day or so until the wind builds again and I will be in the correct range for my smaller sails again. Still, having stared down the barrel of a dismasting and abandoning the race I am happy to still be here and running down the miles to the Horn.
