Awesome day, couldn’t ask for better weather. Wait, that is NOT what the forecast said! We actually found enough wind to turn off the engine this morning. The wind was keeping a steady 8 knots of breeze, shifting around a bit, but still pretty nice as there was no sea state. An extremely comfortable day sailing. Could almost be lake conditions except we did cover lots of miles at 6-7 knots most of the day. With some of the wind shifts we had to adjust the sails to get back on course of course. 🙂
Had a Sunday big breakfast of bacon, hash browns and eggs that hit the spot after the morning nap, recovering from the late night shifts.
We had a little pizza party before we left our friends behind and there were some left over fish cakes, that we are going to devour for dinner. Smells yummy as they are warming up just now.
Will probably have to run the generator a bit this eve, as we have been making water most of the day and the solar panels are shaded by the sails. Had thought the wind was going to lay down and we’d be back running with an engine on. Hopefully the wind continues on.
Cheers, all good on aboard, cruising along.
298 of 452 miles left to go. [realtime]
At 5/20/2019 @ 2:03 AM UTC Our position: 21°21.05’S, 137°06.31’W Traveling 7.4 heading 301T
Google says we are here www.google.com/maps/place/-21.35083,-137.10517
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So long Gambiers.
We made some great friends and hung out with the locals like we were family. Learned the fish we CAN eat, spear fished a few. Caught lobsters at low tide, explored the pearl farms snorkeled, paddle boarded, hiked miles, fought for supplies from the supply ship, anchored in crowded and isolated bays. Sad to leave and move on but there is more to see.
There is virtually no wind or waves in our forecast so we are motoring, we did get 10 knots of wind under one dark cloud that gave us a nice boost. The best part of motoring is that the batteries and water tanks will be completely full when we arrive. The huge full moon is awesome night light.
We should be in Hao in about 3 days at our conservative engine speed for fuel consumption, then about a week there exploring before heading to crowded Tahiti.
All good on board, main sail is up, we rolled the jib when the wind dropped to 2 knots.
Would love to post pictures but the internet was definitely not up to the task, but we will do so when we encounter to good WiFi.
409 of 452 miles left to go. [realtime]
At 5/19/2019 @ 4:45 AM UTC Our position: 22°38.16’S, 135°39.61’W Traveling 4.5 heading 312T
Google says we are here www.google.com/maps/place/-22.63600,-135.66017
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Day #11
All good on board as the final night shift of this leg of the adventure.
After a motor sail yesterday that finally turned into a real sail at night, the morning light brought another adventure. The squall line was 6 miles long. No matter what we tried we couldn’t get to the upwind side of the squall in time. Yank down some more canvas, double reefed main and jib and power through the wall. No sun or horizon most of the day, we were rewarded with a nice fresh water rinse of the boat for what seemed like hours.
Squalls bring wind and rain, this guy was no different, the wind now behind us, became a run, and turned to directly downwind at sunset. In order to make the way point around the island we setup wing on wing. A following 2 meter sea, and 20 knots of wind pushing us along directly toward where we want to go. Not a favorite point of sail lots of risk of accidental jibes. Auto is handling the downwind run very well, and the main is prevented from the accidental jibe.
Tonight should mark the last night shift as it looks like at sunrise we will be just north of the island and take a few hours to head to the west side to find the ‘marked’ entrance. There is an entrance on this side of the reef, but with the winds and waves and darkness, we are not gonna try that route. We will take the longer route as it looks marked and the sleep deprived sailor needs all things to his advantage when getting next to hard things to bounce into, under and above the water.
Another sunset Christine captured, the full resolution photo is spectacular.
48 of 1414 miles left to go. [realtime]