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July 2, 1999
Hawaii to Tarawa Voyage, Update #60
Day 60. Friday 2 July 1999 0253 GMT
Wind E-ESE - 2 knots. Heading 225-180M
Latitude: 02deg 01.882N
Longitude: 179deg 30.280W
I thought it rather strange that we only made 0.5 miles westward drift last night. And this morning our heading of 225M, although technically with the wind and swell, felt a bit more sluggish than yesterday. During lunch my suspicions were confirmed when I switched on the GPS and found to my horror that we were losing 0.5 of a knot back east again. Back in counter-current - nightmare. With any luck I'll wake up in a minute and find this all to be a bad dream.
With hindsight we should have kept north of 4 degrees N to get further west before cutting south across the ITCZ. But it's easy to say that now. The southeast trades are very different to their northern counterparts: far less wind and swell (at this latitude anyway). Altogether much more passive and not nearly as competent at helping along slow moving human powered vehicles like Moksha.
So now I'm back on a heading of 180M in search of this illusive westward current. Actually today has been one of the hottest of the voyage, and at 180M at least I'm getting some ventilation directed onto my head from the funnel above the pedal seat. This morning on 225M small heat blisters were starting to break out on my arms and stomach, indicating overheating. It doesn't matter how much you sweat when this happens, the body loses its capacity to self-regulate temperature and the only thing is to stop and stay very still. The last thing I need right now is heat exhaustion and/or dehydration.
Back to the grind.
Jason Lewis,
The Moksha motor
Posted on July 2, 1999 2:29 AM