We did it: the equator is crossed and we are on the Southern hemisphere. It was last Tuesday in the late evening hours. The display on the nav instruments changed from N for north to S for south. I was off watch and should have been asleep. But then you don’t cross the equator every day and especially not for the first time. So I got up on deck as did almost everyone else. But apart from that it was not very spectacular. It could have been any other degree of latitude. But at least the boat speed was good.

The initiation ceremony is still pending as the conditions on board are pretty rough at the moment.  We are hoping for less movement in the next few days. As I am writing this, we are in the last few hours of the ocean sprint. The three boats crossing this part the fastest will be awarded three, two and one bonus point respectively. Thus we are trying even harder than normal to keep the boat moving fast to the south.

Our communication is severely impacted since a few days. The reason is the inverter ceased working. And we could not convince it to working again. And with the inverter our main way of charging the nav computer fell away and we lost our primary satellite connection. We now have to charge the laptop whenever the generator is running and are using the secondary satellite connection. However, both are not always available and so it is more difficult to send and receive emails. That is also one reason why it took a bit longer for this update. The other being the rougher conditions, in which I try to get every moment of rest I can. Therefore, it could take a little longer for the next update as well. But with less than 2000 nautical miles to go until Punta del Este we expect our arrival in about a week from now.