What a rude way to start the day! Just before day break the sails started to make racket, wouldn’t stay filled with air as we went over the waves.. I was asleep and had just dozed off when Christine woke me up and said there was a huge blob on the radar. Yup, sure enough, more than 3 miles deep and 10+ miles long and smack dab in our way and no clear way around it.

Rolled the jib and started to put the second reef in the in main. While putting the reef in the dreaded cold breeze arrived. Not gonna get this done in time. WhoooooooSH, the rain and the winds went from next to nothing to 30+ knots. Still groggy from waking up, dropped the main as quickly as possible and tied it down motored about in the driving rain for an hour. A morning shower to wake up is one thing, but cold and driving rain is just RUDE.

Oh well, all good! The boat got a fresh wash and Christine and I an impromptu bath. The wind took hours to regroup and organize.. We turned on engine and motored in our general path for 6 hours an least we told ourselves we were charging the batteries!

Around 3pm while we were watching the second feature film of the lazy day, the wind started coming form a consistent direction, at 5-7knots. Not quite enough but tried it any way and low and behold we are sailing again slowly but the batteries were well charged by now.

Forecast says tomorrow the winds should behave and push us along again. We are in touch with another boat behind us by 50 miles or so, they also had the wall of water to contend with today.

Picture: The calm after the Kaos.

Thought about going for a swim or a paddle board.

Distance to go 1250 miles.

The first 4 hours of today, our average was over 8.3 knots, now 20 hours later, its 5.9 knots and only going down as we are currently going 3.8 knots. Oh well, not in a hurry. The winds at the Fiji end of the journey look to be strong. Enjoying the peaceful sounds for a bit.

[tag Live,Passage,underway]

Another lovely nice sailing day. Winds picked up a little bit, and that means the sea did as well. It is not uncomfortable but you do feel the change. Coupled with a bit more wind we stowed the spinnaker from yesterday and are just use it working white sails. Still moving along quite well and easting and resting well.

Our forecast model and help from our shore side watch keep suggests we should try and get a little more north to pass a ‘no wind’ zone that is in the forecast in a couple of days so we are doing a little bit of that today. Our cross track error is climbing, that is the distance we have traveled away from the the straight line from start to finish. We have gone 100+ miles north of the straight line, that means we will have to come back those 100 odd miles when by the time we get to the destination. We are chasing the favorable winds to keep us moving and the seas that are not too rough.

Day after day things will start to blur, what day is it? How long have we been on this passage? Wasn’t that the same cloud we passed yesterday? We are not going in circles are we? 🙂

All good on board, just taking it easy. Bacon Breakfast tacos whats not to love

[tag Live,Passage,underway]

Gorgeous day, still light winds and moderate seas. Super comfortable sailing. At day break, time to hoist the downwind sail. We were really close to dead down wind so we used our smallest spinnaker 125m2, still about 1000 sq feet of sail cloth. Without a squall one on the horizon the spinnaker danced and pulled Sugar Shack along in the right direction all day long.

Today the GPSs on board started freaking out, more exactly couldn’t pick up a GPS position. Maybe there are too many starlink satellites in the sky and obstructing the GPS signals? 🙂 There are countless devices with GPS positioning on board. From hand helps to VHF to AIS. Lots of GPS receivers. Also the iridium go! satellite tracker has a device, and if you look at our track lately it looks like we are drawing crazy star patterns with the boat, and going every which direction. So far, I think we are still going in the right direction. :). The magnetic compass still says so. Seems better now, at least onboard, not sure what our predict wind track looks like, but I bet it’s amazing.

As darkness approached, decision time. Fly the spinnaker in the dark or drop back to white sails. We let it fly for a while, then the when the wind threatened to increase we swapped back to white working sails. Slowed down but still a very comfortable night.

Closing in on the 1500 miles to go mark, should break that barrier in a coupe of hours.

All well on board.

[tag Live,Passage,underway]