The Tropic of Capricorn is situated on an extra eight hours sailing, so tomorrow we are out of the tropics. Two days ago we cross the sun on its journey to the north and we experienced the zenith from very close. Reckoning with the sun seems pointless that day. Yesterday it was possible to do a sun-tropic reckoning into a chart and today it was a regular well-known morning- and sun latitude reckoning.

Roughly translated, two days ago everybody left the sextant in the box, yesterday the mate was trying to locate the sun in every direction and today all the “scientists” were standing on starboard.

We see the sun round noon in the north, and it will be there for a while. At least, if the sun stays visible despite all clouds that we expect the next few days. Not good for reckoning, better for our skins. “Every negative side has a positive side” a famous Dutch football player would say… or was it the other way around.

Richard Slootweg
Captain Clipper Stad Amsterdam