Friday the 13th Day in the Middle of Nowhere - Day 13

Well it is official! We have made it to the middle of nowhere!

We are a little over half way to French Polynesia and as far away from land as one can get.

Last night we experienced our first squall, which was quite exiting. It started to rain and the wind picked up to 20 knots or so. We believe we are officially in the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), as we have experienced several squalls today as well.

The ITCZ is basically a constantly moving band of weather around the equator which is created by the intersection of the northern and southern hemisphere weather patterns. Generally the weather is quite unpredictable in the ITCZ, it is often dead calm, or extremely windy with rain and thunderstorms. So far we have been sailing quite well in it on a dead south course to try and get through as soon as possible. It seems like we might have a unusually good weather window to cross so we are trying to take advantage of that.

Anne-Marie has been a little disappointed with the amount of rain we received out of the squalls so far. She has been ready with her bathing suite and a bar of soap all day waiting to take a fresh water shower, but the rain has only lasted a few minutes at a time. I'm sure she will get her opportunity for a prolonged shower sooner or later.