What a difference a day makes.
Van Morrison said “There would be days like this”. Today was pretty much the quintessential big wave sailing day. 4 meter waves, with an actual period between them, so much better then the washing machine of days gone by. With any luck those washing machine memories will be replaced with more of the blue skies and smooth sailing, even if it means climbing mountains all day long.
Winds under 15 knots, clocking from 220 this morning to a fine beam of 170 to our 270 course toward them Gambier islands. Occasional dips into double digit SOG, surfing down the back sides of these horizon eclipsing waves.
Even drug the fishing lines today, no joy so far, but it is a signs of a good easy day. Under 900 miles to go, three apples left, 3 avocados too, so that means 3 more days right? Only in a plane, we are gonna be arriving without apples that’s for sure.
As sun was setting, the all too familiar squirrels (squalls nicknamed on the Pacific Puddle Jump – a group of boats crossing the Pacific each year) reared their heads on the horizon. To avoid the squirrels at night you try and head up wind round them, or since I’m lazy reef, that and there are many this evening. So just at sunset we reefed the main down to second position and no sooner has the sun set, squirrel #1 descended on our position with some rain and some wind, having a little less canvas meant no problems. Adjust for changing wind direction and return to course as soon as we are past this squirrel. Interesting that we used squirrel to mean those stinky creatures that are all over the Galapagos and San Francisco bay. The Galapagos squirrels are also to be avoided as they are stinky and leave presents that no one really ever wants onboard.
Cheers
866 of 1414 miles left to go. [realtime]
At 4/5/2019 @ 2:42 AM UTC Our position: 25°58.56’S, 119°27.99’W Traveling 6.8 heading 290T
Google says we are here www.google.com/maps/place/-25.97600,-119.46650