Day #2 is winding down. Completely uneventful day, the best kind of days to have. The predicted weather before we left said the wind would die to next to nothing. For once the prediction actually happened. On came one engine and keep us moving toward the destination. Slowly, no real need to rush. Technically we could just drift along or wait for wind. Since we should have plenty of fuel, we opted to just run one engine at 50% power to push us along till *hopefully* the forecasted wind picks up over night.

There was very little wind so the water was glassy smooth with the exception of the swell. Some pretty big swell was rolling in making the boat go up and down pretty much all day. Lots of reading, playing on devices, Christine organized some of our movies, I’m thinking about trying the music library. Course I have been thinking about that for years, too many duplicates and far too many genres to make finding music easy. We will see if I actually get motivated.

Had a couple Chipotle Burrito Bowls with left-overs for future passage meals. Make a big pot when the weather is nice and freeze the rest for quick meal when the weather is not conducive to cooking.

All good just making slow progress. Fingers crossed that the wind does as the forecast reports and returns this evening for a nice sail the rest of the way.

Happy Friday y’all.

364 of 498 miles left to go.
[realtime]

At 5/31/2019 @ 6:23 AM UTC
Our position: 17°47.69’S, 143°14.26’W
Traveling 4.5 heading 271T

Google says we are here
www.google.com/maps/place/-17.79483,-143.23767

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Well we are on the move again. We enjoyed out time in Hao, but it was more utilitarian than exploration. Hao had decent internet a big pass into the atoll and supposedly some great snorkeling / diving at the pass. Well we took advantage of the internet, and since we followed the supply ships in when we arrived loaded up on some fresh fruits and veggies.

The utilitarian part was ordering some parts for Christine’s trip back to the US, to make sure they arrive on time. As well as a few trips to the local hospital. A bite or scratch on Christine’s leg wasn’t healing so we sought the advice of the professionals, and they got her well on the mend. We stayed a few days longer to make sure it was going to mend, letting the doctor/nurse follow up. Its looking good, so we decided to move on to Tahiti.

Moving on is not without its challenges. Saying good-bye yet again to new friends, and the biggie this time was raising the anchor. The anchor alarm/watch had a really tight circle pattern, much too tight for the amount of chain we had out in the deep water, so we planned on a lengthy process. Really weren’t sure what to expect. We knew the wind had shifted us 360 degrees more than once during our stay, and we had anchor floats on the chain since we really couldn’t see the bottom in 17M of water. Turns out we snagged some old rebar forms some 8×8 feet square, and 2 of them at that. With that on the chain and anchor we didn’t stand a chance of moving. Cutting the ropes that held them together and we were able to pull the rest of the chain up, course the whole process took over an hour.

These atolls have entrances or passes, that is how the water gets in to them as well as the boats. So you have to time your passages to coincide with ‘slack tide’. The anchor fiasco, even tho we allotted extra time we were late for what we thought was the definition of slack tide. Wrong, but at least it was an outgoing current. We entered the pass with 6 knots of boat speed, with the current our speed topped 12.5 knots. What a crazy ride, over the shallows and current pushing every direction. We made it, the boat that was coming out behind us decided to wait and try tomorrow. There were some pretty big waves as the current gushed over the shallow spots, we continued till we were well clear of the currents and raised the sails on our way to Tahiti.

The forecast is for light winds for the first 2 days then filling in some. That being said we have 9 knots of wind and we are cruising along at 7 knots of boat speed. We started out heading south around the 2 closet atolls in our path, but then the wind came more out of the north so we are now going north around Marokau and Ravahere.

Planning on 4 or 5 days till we arrive in Tahiti, lets see if I can remember to send a ‘we arrived’ update as I tend to forget when the hook is actually down.

470 of 498 miles left to go.
[realtime]

At 5/30/2019 @ 5:52 AM UTC
Our position: 18°03.06’S, 141°23.07’W
Traveling 5.6 heading 283T

Google says we are here
www.google.com/maps/place/-18.05100,-141.38450

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Getting close. Forgot to send and update yesterday, but all is well. Yesterday the weather did as forecast actually predicted. Died completely, the water was so glassy smooth it was hard to tell where the water became sky. I dropped a 2 lb weight on the fishing line down 50+ feet a could see it clear as day. The water is that clear and the surface that smooth.
No wind, no waves so the engine was running, Oh well that is what the forecast called for and we did have a great time in Gambier postponing the trip north long and longer. We could have left on Monday, as that is when the forecast looked marginally better. Now with hindsight, if we had waited till Monday we would have had zero wind until it was blowing on the nose for the second part of the trip. We are out ahead of that fun.
Taking naps, eating food, checking the horizon and instruments keep the days going. Christine is watching a some of the movies we have on the hard drive, eliminating the duplicates and organizing everything. I fixed the oven/stove automatic lighter again. Course I completely disassembled it completely, had the electrical tester out trying to find the cause. Seemed to point to the piazzo igniter, but as a last resort I tried another battery and voila. Back in business. For the record, I had already tried to batteries previously and tested them with the tester they all had juice all the way to the igniter. Oh well, new battery and sparky is lighting up again.
Now on track for a morning arrival at sunrise and hopefully at ‘slack’ tide to make entering the atoll easy as the passes or entrances can be challenging with currents, based on tide and weather. So you are never supposed to arrive new ports at night, here the second challenge is timing the tide and then add in the need for sunlight high in the sky to see the coral heads after you enter the lagoon. All part of the life.
Boat sails pretty good in light winds, something we haven’t had much practice in, we are managing 90% of wind speed in boat speed today so the engine has been given a break. We shall see how long.
60 of 452 miles left to go. [realtime]
At 5/22/2019 @ 2:17 AM UTC Our position: 18°40.96’S, 140°15.19’W Traveling 5.3 heading 314T
Google says we are here www.google.com/maps/place/-18.68267,-140.25317
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