Passage from La Cruz, Mexico to Hiva Oa, Marquesas
Day 5 - Sunday - April 11, 2010
UTC/Local: 0700, 0200
Latitude: 17 51.753 N
Longitude: 110 10.341 W
Conditions:
When I went off watch last night around 2:00, we had been sailing with main, jib, and mizzen consistently with wind from the North West off our starboard beam, boat speed about 4.5 knots with 12 knots of wind. When I awoke, the wind had shifted North North West which was a run (wind directly on our back) right toward our course line. The jib and main were wing on wing in 14 knots of wind and our speed had increased to 6 knots. Whoo Hoo! It is pretty exciting to know that Worrall Wind as loaded as she is can still get up to six knots.
The barometric pressure at dawn was at 1017, and we had an 80% overcast. As the night wears on the stars are obscured by clouds that form during the early morning. Along with the increased and favorable wind today, we were also greeted with confused seas, meaning that we were seeing significant swell (9-12 feet) coming from several directions, some opposing. We rocked back and forth fairly consistently unless we got into a place where the swells collided then it was little lumpy. By mid morning we were beginning to see our first white caps on the voyage. They weren't significant, but and indication that we had a fresh breeze.
As I write this log at 2:00 a.m. on Monday morning, April 12, we are still wing on wing, traveling 4.5 - 5.5 knots. We have not had to adjust the sails all day. We had been above our course line, but intersected it about 1:00 a.m. this morning. We will continue southward and when the sun comes up, change sails and tack back. Right now we are on a beautiful run, and there are no boobies on the mast spinning on the Windex. As we glide through the water with more speed, I can hear the water rushing past our hull and can see a white wash of florescent twinkle like little fireflies in the water. Its spell binding. I cannot see the sea state as it is so dark, but the boat is not rocking as much so I suspect the swell has settled down considerably.
When everyone was up this morning, it was time to clean the outside of the boat. Our night rider, another booby on the top of our mast on the jib furler had left its calling cards all over the deck. We hooked up the saltwater hoses and washed down the decks and railings. The water temperature coming out of the hose directly from the sea is luke warm, somewhere in the low 80's. We were moving so quickly, I didn't want to throw our rubber ducky thermometer in the water fearing the bottom would be torn from the ducky and we would lose the thermometer. Checking the temp seems to be better done when we are moving more slowly. It is about 78 degrees F in the cabin this evening and 85% humidity. The decks are wet.
Despite the sun beating on our solar panels and the water turbine we are pulling behind our boat, we were still down considerably on our battery charging. Our two refrigerators, freezer, computers, and radio transmissions are a pretty big drain. We didn't run the engine today, but we did break out the Honda generator and had that running for several hours to see if we could catch up. We never caught up, so it looks like we will have to supplement the electrical use each day with either the Honda or the engine.
Our plan is to eat as much as we can out of our primary frig which is the most efficient, transfer the food from the secondary frig (least efficient) and turn that one off. Eventually, we hope to eat up all of the food in the frig and freezer, turning them both off or at least way down. At night, we walk around with our head lamps and refrain from using any overhead or supplementary lighting.
After our routine chores of washing down the decks, checking for chaffing and potential problems, examining the food stores for mold and spoilage, we spent most of the day just enjoying the ride, reading, listening to music and pod casts, checking email, etc. We used our satellite phone to download some weather information today for the first time. The data rate transmission is pretty slow, so we stopped it after 14 minutes. We got the most pertinent information confirming what we we already were experiencing in terms of the confused seas and the increased wind. The 1016 line has moved down and apparently we are riding it right now. Russ practiced with his sextant today and calculated our position to within 1 mile of our actual GPS latitude and longitude reading. He's getting better. Too many calculations for me, but it's nice to know that if the GPS goes down, Russ can figure out where we are.
All is well on Worrall Wind.
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