Worrall Wind Update - Day 3 to Vanuatu - Thursday, June 23, 2011

UTC/Local Time: 0000 June 23, 2011/12:00 p.m.

Latitude: S 19 23.423
Longitude: E 173 15.800
Course Over Ground: 240 @ 4 knots
Wind Direction: E 12 knots
Sea Swell: 1 meter
Sky: 100% overcast
Temp & Humidty: 83 F, 71%
Barometric Pressure: 1016

Update: Calmer seas more gentle winds - Booby Hitchhiker

When Russ took over at 1:30 a.m. this morning, and I went to bed, we were barreling along between 6.5 and 8.00 knots depending on the push from following waves. The seas were still 6-9 feet high, the moon had risen an hour earlier. We went out to the fan tail occasionally to adjust Hydie's course fully jacketed and tethered to the the jacklines.

As the sun had set earlier the previous evening, a juvenile booby decided to land on our port spreader and relax from his fish hunting during the night. The boat was rocking so much, he would slide from outside tip toward the mast when we rolled to starboard and then back to the outside tip with each wave rebound. With one of the waves, he got knocked off the spreader and grabbed frantically and unsuccessfully with his webbed feet to the shroud that has the flag halyard attached. His neck got caught in the flag haylard and he was hanging as if by a noose. Russ had just gotten on his life vest to rescue the booby, when he untangled iw own neck and slid down the rest of the way to land clumsily on the deck. He hopped up on the box that houses the dorad and maintained a precarious perch with his webbed footing over the port side if the box. Each time we rocked to port he would lean back. Each time we rocked to starboard his little webbed feet held him.

There were plenty of more protected places on the bow he could have been had he been smart enough to explore, but he stayed where he was until I went to bed at 1:00. Occasionally, I would turn the head lamp on him to see how he was doing. I don't think he slept much as he seemed to use this time to pick at his molting feathers and whatever creepy little critters live under his feathers. I asked Russ to take a picture of him in the morning light if he was still on board.

As the night wore on, I slept very well. The seas were laying down and the wind growing more gentle. When I awoke at 6:30 a.m., the booby had just flown off. Bye-bye Booby. He left a dreadful amount of booby poop on the bow deck as a thank you. We had 10-12 knots of wind, 1.5 meter seas, and our speed had reduced down to 3.5-5 knots. We were going to have to do a deliberate slowdown (reducing sail) anyway as our anticipated time of arrival in Vanuatu would be o'dark hundred tomorrow evening. By deliberately slowing we would stretch out the trip (something we really hate to do), but at least we would arrive Saturday morning during daylight hours. The island of Anatom that we plan to check into is surrounded by reef so we need good light.

Right now there is 100% cloud cover and we are running downwind. The cloud cover is severly reducing our solar panel power generation from 30 amps to 10 amps. While we are running downwind, our wind generator produces nothing. Since our total amps are down and our refrigerator and freezer continue to pull on the energy, we just got out the Honda generator and put it on the back deck. This would have been impossible yesterday because of the roll and waves. When the Honda gets rolled (off balance)it automatically kills itself. We contemplated running the engine for awhile last night, but decided the Honda is more economical and we would pull it out today if we needed to.

We checked in the HAM Seafarer Net yesterday to report our position, between 0300-0400 UTC on 14.300. Our HAM call sign is KI6YHE for any of you HAMS that want to try and connect with us through Saturday. We were also able to make radio contact with our friends Gene and Gloria on Pincoya last night on 6.510 at 0700 UTC. The copy was very light. We think they said they hoped to be coming into Savusavu on Fiji sometime today. We'll try again this evening to reach local folks on 6.510 or 12B or 12C at 0700 UTC.

If you want to know where we are, check out FIND ME SPOT on the blog. It's working here and hopefully reporting there. Cheers!

All is well with the 2 Sail R's on Worrall Wind.