I am completely becalmed. It is just before midnight. The spinnaker hangs limp, moving only when the mast sways now and then in the old swell. It is 1,400 miles to Panama.
The weather forecast for the coming week is discouraging: very light wind in this area. I may be here for a long time. I will be lucky to make 50 miles a day, and then only if the wind picks up to a few knots during the daylight hours. I have enough water to last at least another 30 days and food for that long as well, if I am careful.
Most sailors in this area dread the frequent gales that blow out of the Gulf of Tehuantepec. I long for one, mainly because those gales sometimes create 20 to 30 knot winds as far as a couple hundred miles from the gulf. If that were to happen, I could at least motor to an area with wind. But there are no Tehuantepec gales forecast for the next week. And it is getting late in the season now, so there may not be strong gales in the gulf.
I had assumed there would be light winds on this leg, but not this light and not for such a long period. At the moment it seems unlikely that I will make Panama by April 10 as I was hoping. April 20 may be a stretch. Surely by the end of April I should be there.
It is not easy to sit becalmed all night in a boat 250 miles at sea and 1,400 miles from one’s destination. I am reluctant to sleep since I don’t want to miss even the tiniest breath of wind.
I need to conserve power now, since my primary source of electrical power is the towed generator, and it only works if the boat is sailing. The computer and the radio consume a lot of power. So my posts will be less frequent for a while.
Talk to you again when I have wind.
David