We moved to GMT -5 overnight. At daybreak we were at 12° S 79.° W off Peru and well within the Tropics.
Outside it was 24°C with 91% humidity. As of 07:40 we had travelled 4695 miles and Fort Lauderdale was 2304 miles away. We are still on course to meet the Rotterdam at 6:00 a.m. on 26th March off Panama.
As the sun rose we could clearly see the banks of cloud paralleling the Peruvian coast as the upwelling cold water of the Humboldt Current was exaggerated by the deep Peru-Chile Trench. It is the outer edge of the original South American continent. The trench at depths of more than 6,000 metres defines the fault line that forms part of the “Pacific Rim of Fire” that encompasses the Pacific Ocean. It is here that the Pacific crustal plate dives under South America. When at work the former melts at depths of many kilometres creating earthquakes and volcanoes.
