Last night we rushed through the Celox Sailing Scoring Gate at 10-12 knots under our Code 3 gennaker before turning around the top of Brazil and again hoisting the big spinnaker. It would be nice to be able to bask in the afterglow of getting more points on the board but again the day has dawned with a hot furry, eliminating all chances of basking. Instead of the touch of King Midas where everything turns to gold, we currently have the touch of King Neptune where every touch leaves a wet puddle behind!

We have now reached the latitude of the islands of Fernando de Noronha which were a mark on the southward passage of the Atlantic in leg 1 in September. As we were further east then we have not crossed our outward path but as I have now passed Fernando to the west in opposite directions I shall declare that I am a circumnavigator! Magellan was the first, but I think that I’m the most freshly minted around the world sailor there is at least until the rest of the fleet does likewise.

In 2007 when I did my first transatlantic crossing, I was intimidated by the scope of the task. In 2009 when I did the Mini Transat race, I spent a whole year with nothing on my mind beyond learning the intricacies of the weather patterns and planning for 30 days spent at sea. Now all that remains of our circumnavigation after the end of this leg is “just” a transat! A three thousand mile ocean passage has been reduced to a hill start in a manual car… At first an all encompassing challenge, and now a small part of a greater challenge.

Ok, now its seriously hot. Not “pleasantly warm”  not “toasty” not “cosy”. No, we’ve travelled far and now we’ve arrived in a world of Dante and are struggling with the associated sulfurous superheated blasts of air. We have set up a shrine to Watt and Sea as its endless trickle of power feeds Knut the pilot and allows the weak sailors to languish in the shade of the cuddy.

Having passed our potential stopover point of Recife without stopping, we have gradually born away from the wind and have just now hoisted our big spinnaker and are making a break for it to the North. The Celox scoring gate is 100 miles away and then we will be lining up for the doldrums.  After conquering some computer issues thanks to the marine electrician David Minors, we can again view isobaric charts and satellite images. Thankfully our doldrums crossing looks to be relatively mild and we should be in solid breeze again just after reentering the northern hemisphere.

Now that we have energy again, all is well aboard Cessna Citation. We take bucket showers on the aft deck in the afternoons and rinse with a precious litre of fresh water. As we also deal with our ablutions in the “bucket and chuck it” manner, care has to be taken when choosing the impliment for one’s shower, but as we have two buckets we’ve so far avoided incident.

That is, except for Scotty. We have been seeing more and more flying fish this past week and many take it upon themselves to fly towards, rather than away, from the 40 foot intruder. When I was at the helm recently I saw a dark shaddow approach in the moonlight and ducked, only to have a fish strike the backstay block just behind my head at full speed. Scotty wasn’t so lucky and took a direct hit to his arm. The impact left a round bruise that looks suspiciously like a hickey. Perhaps he’s getting lonely on his moonlit watches! In any case, he has fish pie from Backcountry Cuisine today, so he at least gets a karmic comeback.

Now if you will excuse me, I have a suicidal flying fish to attend to.

So far this trip we have had our minds on energy, and not just the oil field dinosaurs. Shortly after the start our hydrogenerator, from which we derive most our energy for the boat, stopped producing the critical amps that keep the boat humming along. We harness the wind for our locomotion, but today’s increasingly wired yachts need power for navigation computers, satellite communications and autopilots.

We’ve come along way since Sir Robin Knox Johnson first sailed non-stop around the world in 1969 on a wooden boat with wind vane self steering. He would have probably scoffed at our calamitous turn of events, but then he would have been screwed if he spilled his lamp oil! Each generation has its own Achilles heel.

For nearly a week now we have been handsteering almost all the time and turning off all electrical devices except the GPS and wind instruments. While the technicians at Watt and Sea rightly enjoyed their Easter weekend, I was chewing off my fingers nails while stressing about whether we would have enough diesel to run the engine to charge the batteries and make water with the desalinator.

After a couple of days of back and forth with Watt and Sea, our unit had failed all diagnostic tests and we’d given up hope of producing green energy on the ocean blue and had resigned ourselves to diesel pitstop and the associated penalty from the race committee. However, last night while helming, I had a flash of inspiratinon and discovered that we had made some assumptions during the tests that had given us a false negative. The generator still works and we are charging again. Our mood has lifted, the sun is shining (it actually never stopped, but the power from the solar panels wasn’t enough on its own to keep us going) and all is well in the world.

Greetings from off the coast of Brazil. Its no Carnival however, we’ve long since missed that party. Instead we have been chasing gentle zephyrs of wind with the demonic enthusiasm of the storm hunters in the oh so terrible mid-90′s film “Twister”. At least the special effects were good!

In wriggling through a ridge of high pressure we have been blessed with perfectly clear skies both and and night, leaving us to enjoy the most spectacular watercolour sunsets and sail the boat without head lamps at night thanks to the lunar light left on high beam for our convenience. We could watch the approach of the invisible ridge at high because the clouds were slowly eaten from above by their fluffy tops to their flat bottoms until there was nothing but a perfectly clear sky. It was spooky to be able to watch the silent transition of one transparent air mass to another.

Given the light conditions and the virginal white moonlight it was a shock to be presented by the hustle and bustle of the New Jersey Turnpike in the middle of the ocean. Buring gas flares, hulking drilling platforms and bright lights make up the Campos Oil Field just off the Brazilian coast and for an entire night our passage was illuminated by flickering towers of light. Slightly nauseated, I felt like I had stepped onto the killing floor of Upton Sinclair’s slaughterhouse for the modern petrochemical age. Sadly I had to check my indignation, for the shiny white race boat that I now steer, pushed by the wind though it is, is laminated from tendrils teased from the black filth they peddle.

Now that we have escaped the clutches of the ridge we have light easterlies from the St Helena High to waft us north wards on a beam reach. There is energy in the atmosphere again and the wind that comes blasting from the towering cumulus clouds are keeping us on our toes. At the end of the day, these thunderheads create a grey sawtooth profile on the pink horizon, their bottoms lost from view thanks to the curvature of the earth. Over the pink is yellow then green then blue, all washed together until, with a crick in my neck, I’m left with the pure blackness of the infinite overhead, not yet pricked by the first stars of the early night. I see your Apple retina display and raise you an oceanic sunset any day!

Onwards and up wards now, uphill to the equator!