UTC/Local -8:
Latitude: 06 41.970 S
Longitude: 135.36.137 W
Conditions:
1024/0224 It is early in the morning of May 3. The moon is waning, but nevertheless, it lights up the horizon as a friend in the night. We are now on a beam reach having gone far enough south and the winds are east, southeast. These pre-dawn winds are variable between 9 and 15 knots, nothing holds constant for more than a few minutes. As the wind recedes, we are on a beam reach. As the wind increases, Hydie rounds us up to a closer reach, but generally no more than 60 degrees. The swells are coming from the east south east as well. We are on less of a heel and there is more side to side wallowing on this tack.
I enjoy the night watch on a stable night when everyone else is sleeping. We have all gotten along well and enjoy each other's company, but it's nice in small living quarters to have some alone time. I think Russ and Garyn enjoy the time as well. In between recording positions and paying attention to course and sail, we enjoy the rhythm and sounds of the sea, listen to podcasts, audio books, and music, read, write and study topics of personal interest.
As we are now withng 400 miles of land, we are beginning to notice more sea birds. There were boobies with us until the full day of rain we had on April 20, one week ago at latitude 03 N. Since that time and yesterday, we hadn't seen any birds. Now we have seen some white birds in the distance. We have also begun to have some ship traffic. A large freighter crossed our course line 25 miles in front of usk around midnight.
1200/0400 As it turned out, night watch was active and there was no time for any relaxation. The winds started to gust up to 20 miles an hour and not from the same direction as the primary breeze. We had Hydie set up to be on a beam to broad reach with the primary wind coming from our stern quarter, east south east. If the wind held steady this was a good sail and courseline. Unfortunately, our 15 knot wind would die down to 8, and with the large eastern swell, we had to be vigilant not to gybe as the wind would die down and Hydie would fall off with the wind directly behind us. Then every 3-5 minutes we would get a strong cross wind gusting up to 21 knots coming from the southeast rounding us up and heelig us over so quickly that we heel quik qnd hard. Hydie struggles when the wind is so variable, so it means that the sailors on board actually need to man the helm and give her some help with the big rudder. This back and forth was tedious. At 4:00 a.m. one of the gusts heeled us so quickly that a few things went flying. it woke up Russ. He came up to adjust Hydie and slept the rest of my watch on the settee behind me.
By 7:00 a.m. I was happy to hand over the helm to Russ and Garyn I took a nap from 9:00 -10:00 then was back at the helm until lunch. Russ took a little snooze too. We keep hoping the wind will settle in one drection, and the 9 foot swells often slamming us from the side will subside.
1500/0700 Sunrise was just 40 minutes ago. Once again, we will need to turn the clock back for our local time Zulu -9. That will mean instead of 7:00 a.m. in the morning, we will have to be with our readings by 6:00 a.m., but at least it will be light. We will probably take care of this detail Cinqo de Mayo.
By 7:00 a.m. I was happy to hand over the helm to Russ and Garyn I took a nap from 9:00 -10:00 then was back at the helm until lunch. Russ took a little snooze too. We keep hoping the wind will settle in one drection, and the 9 foot swells often slamming us from the side will also subside. We are less than 300 miles from landfall, and we are all ready for a little terra firma.
2200/0200
We are still hand steering, the wind seems a little more constant, but those gusts are still coming from a different direction than the primary. The sun is out and we are currently traveling at 6 knots. We got an email from friends who are now in the Marquesas. We have not heard from them for a while, the reason...apparently some of the anchorages are radio holes, can't get a good signal. After our landfall, I will not be writing an update every day and for sure it sounds like I will only be able to send sporadically when we are able.
Hope everyone at home and sailing friends are doing well. We are thinking of you.
All is well on Worrall Wind
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