Sunday November 19, 2000 en route Opua

We’ve been motoring for twenty four hours now. Both of us are using ear plugs to sleep. It’s also cloudier, and much cooler at night so we have dug out warmer clothes. The wind is still there but has gone further into the south and is very light. We went west for quite a while but now, based on the weather predictions we are getting, are heading further south, more directly on the route to Opua, although we are still heading for 30S-174W in case the wind goes more southwesterly when we get closer.

Vlad spent an hour on the SSB with Nancy of EQUINOX, getting her JVComm32 fax software set up to receive the SSTV faxes from Bob on Seafarers. Nothing like software support in mid ocean. (Nancy was able to receive the faxes which we never could. We think it is because she has a Pactor II modem, whereas we were trying to receive them using the microphone input from the HF radio and the signal is just not good enough. Another thing to add to the shopping list.)

Another pin started coming out of the staysail furling foil, so Vlad went up and banged it back in. The hole in the yankee seems to be the same. We are looking forward to showers, laundry and especially eating out. It is American Thanksgiving this week so AMALTHEA are already making plans. I suppose if we are not in by Thursday we can always have Thanksgiving on Friday, since that’s Thursday in the US anyway! As of yesterday, they still had not announced who the next US president would be, which has been quite a weird situation. I think it is supposed to be announced today. We sometimes listen to news on the shortwave frequencies.

At lunchtime we crossed paths with GRAY HAWK and remained within about ten miles of them all night. Later on, Vlad took advantage of the calm seas in the early afternoon to transfer the contents of the two big Mexican diesel containers to the tank. That’s about 100L.

The late afternoon and evening were very frustrating. Still light winds so impossible to sail and now we had a strong (1 knot plus) current against us and the seas had become very confused so that we were doing only 2 knots into them at times. Eventually Vlad increased the RPM to 2500 to punch through them but that burns a lot more diesel. Neither of us had very good sleeping before midnight due to the motion and engine noise. Vlad has been using the soft plastic ear plugs which he says help a lot. Paula finds them uncomfortable to lie on and resorts to cotton wool which is not very effective.

483 miles to go to Opua as of noon.  Click here for Day eight