During the golden age of sail, the merchant and trading square riggers running their easting down around the world followed routes that dipped down into the Roaring 40s. There they usually found the prevailing strong westerlies that made good passage times. No vessel used to go deep into the 50s if they could avoid it. That is, until they were forced to round Cape Horn, having to dive south into colder areas and more forceful winds.

Their wayfinding relied on the knowledge of the navigators about previous trips, other ships' routes, the usual conditions of seas and winds at different latitudes and at different times of the year, their awareness of the oceanic environment and its changes. Skilled with celestial navigation and the use of sextants and chronographs, mastering all the calculations that follow a sun or star sight. And always with a sharp eye on the barometer, its ups and downs, and the way to interpret them.

Routing our trip is proving to be not the easiest task, even though we have the aid of modern navigation equipment and updated weather forecasts. Finding a way between the different large and small weather systems and thinking ahead on their movements and their evolutions, the preferred option brought us to an area between the southeast of a Low Pressure System and the southwest flank of a large High. The latter one has been sitting for days amidst the high latitudes that usually represent a hallway for westerlies and eastward fast-moving depressions, becoming quite an obstruction in their path and making for areas of variable winds and changeable weather. One day the sun shines and temperatures warm up; the next is colder, and we wake up to grey skies that welcome us on deck with pouring rain.

Wind first blows from the north, good weather and great conditions for easting, but then it eases down and veers all the way to easterly. After that, a period of calms is followed by a gradually east-northeast increasing breeze and deteriorating meteorology. We sail south. Under reduced sail, we slow down, reluctant to speed up towards higher latitudes while the best option is to hold up for the forecasted fair winds to come.

Although ahead of us still lay at least 2300nm to The Horn, we already touch latitudes that are well known for the ship on her yearly wanderings into the Southern Ocean and Antarctica. The so-called Furious 50s.