Day came in with low broken clouds and a few light squalls. The cleared throughout the morning. “Land Ho” when we saw Ascension Island fine on starboard. Wore ship at noon to the port tack, about 5 and a half miles SE of Ascension Island. The gang barely looked up.
Ascension Island was an important mid-Atlantic airstrip in WWII for the delivery of aircraft from Brazil to Africa and Europe too I suppose. The saying for those pilots was “if you miss Ascension, your wife gets the pension.” They were referring to navigating their aircraft with sextant alone and finding this small patch out in the middle of nowhere. An important reserve landing strip for the space shuttles and now mostly a high-end listening post some tell us.
Sailmaking, fishing, carpentry, navigation, cleaning, painting, varnishing, cooking and doing dishes go onwards. Workshops in Rules of the Road and ditty bags coming along.
From: St Helena Island, South Atlantic
OceanTowards: The West Indies – most likely Grenada
Date: April 5, 2019
Noon position: 08-03S / 014-29W
Course and speed: NW at 5.5
Wind force and direction: SE at force 4
Seas/swell: moderate seas of 1 to 2 meters from the
Barometer: 1018
Water temperature: 27.9C – 82F
Distance made good in 24 hours: 124 miles
Distance to the next port: Pretty far. 3,053 nautical miles as the albatross flies