On November 21, 2019, Madrone first nosed across the equator, headed south from Mexico to the Galapagos. While crossing, we discovered a bug in our autopilot software – at the equator, the autopilot switched itself off, probably confused at the switch for N to S latitudes, and the boat sailed itself in a circle before we were able to get her back on course.
Today is just under 18 months later, and we celebrated crossing the equator again, passing the line at ~42W longitude at about 8pm local.
There are three big differences this time. First, we’re in the Atlantic instead of the Pacific. Second, this time we’re headed north instead of south – even though we’re in a new ocean headed for the “wrong” side of the continent, it still somehow feels like we’re on our way home rather than on our way to new ground.
And finally, this time the autopilot worked perfectly!
All’s well onboard.
Day Twenty-eight
161nm
001 17.8S 43 07.9W
