0600: Admiral is up and so is the moon at 90%.
Position: 8* 2’ S and 135* 34’ W
Speed is 4.9 knots Course 240
Distance to Go: 203 nm
Moon is still up as the sun is rising in the east!
David moves forward to chase Ethyl away - yes she is still with us! But now she has moved onto the lifelines. Cleaning poo from the pulpit is enough - he does not want to clean poo from the decks also. She almost slaps him with her wings. Then she comes over and lands on the solar panels - looking at him as if to say - na na na na na! She is getting pretty cheeky! But finally she flies away - never to return. Ethyl stayed with us for 6 days. David figures that she located the fishing boat - with a ready supply of fish.
0930: Winds picked up from the East 12-15 knots. Our speed was 6.2 knots just as we were trying to slow down in order to reach our port of call in the daylight hours!
It was a little dicey making coffee but I managed. I am looking forward to being at a quiet anchorage where the Captain can make me some “Cowboy” coffee and serve it to me in bed. It has been 25 days without my normal routine. Cowboy coffee you ask? the old fashioned on the stove steel percolator pot - like the cowboys used to put on their open fires. It still makes the best coffee - just ask my brother! David and Paul make the best cowboy coffee!!
Rainbow in the west. A good sign!
1020; Armon is up. Coffee is on. Mexican scramble for breakfast. Captain to bed. BA back at the helm. Do you see a pattern here?
1200 Noon PositionL 8* 33’ S and 136* 02; W
SOG: 5.2 knots
COG: 243
40% cloud cover with beautiful cumulus clouds all around
Winds are SE 10-12 knots
Seas - 6-8 feet
Distance Travelled in 24 Hours: 116 nm
Distance Travelled to Daate: 2632 nm
Distance to Go: 176 nm
The monitor does a pretty good job as long as the winds are greater than 4 knots. Anything less and you have to babysit her.
Ethyl never came back. I guess David pissed her off for the last time. We do thank her for her company and entertainment.
1730: Change in plans. A decision was made to alter our port of call from Altuona to Nuku Hiva: Reports from other boaters were not favourable for the closer port - large swells, stern anchors required, difficult dinghy landing, minimum provisions. Nuku Hiva is a larger port with a population of 1800. They have 3 grocery stores, a bank, internet, and telephone and restaurants. The water is clear to 50 feet. It adds another 50 nm to our crossing but does it really matter after you have travelled over 2700 nm? We will still make landfall on Monday, just later in the day. And we are right on schedule as all of our documentation was completed are arrival on 25-Apr-2016.
1900 Position 8* 39’ S and 136* 33’ W
The sun is just setting as the moon is rising at 98% and shining on Confidence.
Seas are the same at a 2 foot chop and 3 foot swell.
Speed 4.5 knots
Winds are 10 knots from the east.in.
New distance to go is 211 nm.
The winds started to slow down through the night causing some extra stress on the boom and the preventer.
0330: The preventer finally broke resulting in an accidental jibe and wakening up everyone. Dave was able to do one of his quick fixes and tie the preventer to the boat.
Explaination for you non-sailors. First of all it is called a gibe when the wind is coming behind you and you want to change your point of sail. This means that you are turning the stern of the boat through the wind instead of the bow. When you do this it is necessary to tighten up the main to midship, turn the boat to the new direction. As soon as the wind comes over to the other side of the main, you release the main slowly, reset your course and tighten up the main. When you do an accidental gibe there is no time to tighten up the main and the boom will slam across the boat - not a good move especially if your head is in the way!
It also adds a lot of stress to the boon, the hardware and the lines. So one tries to prevent this from happening.
It was a slow night with the winds tapering off. Tori does not like those conditions so the helmsman had to babysit again. The constant rolling is causing havoc on the main with the swell constantly dumping the sail - reefing lines, topping lift jerking and preventer snapping.
Conditions continued through the morning but the preventer held.
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