There are five brand-new shellbacks aboard Wondertime today! At 3pm local time we crossed over the equator and are now in the South Pacific Ocean.
The girls and I worked on making turtle hats for everyone to wear today for the crossing. I can’t wait to show you the pictures. The adults celebrated with our Special Equator Beers (tasty brews from the UK we’d found in a specialty beer shop in La Paz and have been saving for this day). We also inhaled half a Costco-sized bag of Kettle chips. The girls enjoyed pineapple popsicles from our tiny frosty freezer, some special candy treats and another viewing of Finding Nemo afterwards.
It was just exhilarating, watching those numbers count down to 0, then switch from north latitude to south latitude. All five of us sat in the cockpit with our eyes on the GPS numbers counting down. It was like the most exciting New Year’s Eve ever, except the sun was directly overhead, blinding white and the sea a color of turquoise I’ve never seen before all around us.
We are on the last leg now, although still waiting for wind that will carry us faster than 2 knots. But we’re moving, so we’ll wait. The last three nights we motored through seas so glassy the stars were reflecting on the water. We didn’t have any more wind today so kept on motoring until we were a few miles north of the line, then put up the main, mizzen & genoa. Amazingly the wind came up a bit at the same time and we drifted across the equator at a blazing 2.5 knots. No matter, it gave us plenty of time to savor the moment and our new status as shellbacks.
Total miles at noon: 1808
Miles since yesterday: 98
Current latitude: 0 3′ S
Finding Nemo viewings aboard, including today’s: 174 give or take
