18 July Passage from Jacare, Brazil to Ils du Salut, French Guiana

It wasn't an auspicious start to the passage. We left Jacare on a rainy day after spending twenty minutes scrubbing the chain. Once out at sea the rain continued, but we had current and some wind with us and reached the corner by breakfast next day. As we turned north west the intervals between rain clouds increased and we found we had wind on the stern. Perfect for our twin headsails.

With current and wind we were averaging over 8 knots and logged three 200nm + back-to-back despite discovering a tear in the luff of the ballooner sail on the second morning.

There was no choice. The sail had to be dropped and repaired. Bringing it down wasn't a problem in the light winds except the tear ripped further as came down. We think it caught on the deck light on the mast. The small patch had become a bigger patch. Where should I set up the sewing machine? We could bring all the sail into the cock pit. We could set up the machine on the rolling deck, or...we could leave the greater part of the sail in it's locker at the foot of the forestay and feed the top half through the forward hatch and set up the machine on the berth.

With just the headsail poled out to port we rolled slowly along. I rolled and sweated in the humid air to do the repair. Total time between dropping the ballooner to re-hoisting was two hours. I'm thankful we have a sewing machine capable of canvas work.

In the aftenoon of 14^th July we crossed the equator – our fourth equatorial crossing since we began cruising in 2008.

After we'd passed the mouth of the Amazon the water changed from clear blue to muddy coffee. In the blue we'd caught five yellow fin tuna, now not a bite and the favourable current had slowed from 3 knots to 1 to 1½ knots. The wind died too as we encountered the western edge of the ITCZ and motored for 48 hours until we were far enough north for the breeze to pick up again. From here it was less than a day to our destination and we reached Ils du Salut a little before 3am and anchored in 5m at 05°17.02N 052°35.43W on the east side of Ile Royale. Entry in the dark wasn't a problem. We approached from the south of Ile St Josephe and encountered no hazards.

We'd travelled 1400nm in 7 days and 15 hours, an average speed of 7.7 knots. And it wasn't because the wind was strong. It was the speedy Guiana current which speeds NW across the mouth of the great Amazon river at up to four knots.