Next Stop…The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ)

Now that we have made it past the halfway point, the next milestone is crossing through the Intertropical Convergence Zone, where the North East and South East trade winds meet. The ITCZ is a place of spotty wind, or no wind, and thunderstorms and squalls. It looks like we should enter the ITCZ right around latitude 3 degrees north. The width of the ITCZ can vary greatly from 10 lor 20 miles to 300+ miles. We want to get across it at its most narrow point so we can sail and not have to motor.

Right now our weather routing software, PredictWind, is showing that we should maintain pretty good winds all the way through the ITCZ. But because of the fluky nature of the area, it really is hard to predict just what the winds will be like. PredictWind does show that If we were even a couple of days later than we are, there will be a massive hole of no wind. We are hoping to miss that!

As we cross through the ITCZ, will also cross the equator, latitude ZERO. We are probably 3 days away from making it to the equator. Meanwhile we just keep heading the boat south, which means our latitude, is dropping fast.

Our current latitude is just under 7 degrees. Each degree of latitude is 60 nautical miles. At our current pace we drop one degree every 8 hours or so. So about 3 degrees a day. That will put us at the ITCZ sometime tomorrow (Monday) and crossing the equator on Tuesday. Crossing the equator is a BIG deal for sailors. I’ll talk more about that in a later post…