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Yup, there is weather on them oceans

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The forecast was for crossing some “troughs” at some point along the way, well we found our first one.

The wind slowed down, way down, the sails just flapped?!? What happened? Forecast said we should have 20 kts of wind. Oh well, roll up the jib, no sense having it flap about. Hmmm what to do with the main sail, it’s already double reefed, it’s. It flapping too much.

See a darker gray on the moonlight night, a head of us. Check the radar, it’s still 12 miles away… on what the heck, store the main sail too. Turn on engines and top up the batteries..

Enjoy the mysteriously calm sea state and watch the batteries charge, no rain, not much breeze..

Check radar, ahh there it is 5 miles out, the radar shows a long blob, and it’s thick too, like 6 miles to go through. Too long to go around, guess we we will have to just get it over and go through.

Yes, the radar alarms were screaming on this one

Hmmm not much more than a sprinkle in the depths of the radar blob. But coming out the other side was a different story.

No wind, jumped to 40 knots, sea went from placid to “where did that come from”. I had lowered the cockpit rain shades, cause no reason to get wet in the placid drizzle, but now a torrential down pour and honking winds, making the shades shudder. Spent the next 20 minutes keeping the new rain shades from beating them selves to bits in the winds.

Eventually the other side cleared and unfurled the jib and sailed with just the head sail till day break. Not nearly the 200 miles day of the previous, but a respectable 170 miles, and no issues to report

The rest of the day was nice sailing, started out double reefs main and eventually shook it out to only 1 reef when the gusts to 25 subsided. Still a big swell was with us all day, it’s sort of going our direction, which helps with the motion.

We should really reach 1/2 by day break tomorrow, 530 miles left to go. All good on board, getting rest and nice hot bowl of gumbo for dinner.

Full day down

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What a morning sunrise. Not for the view, but for the squalls, lots of em. Driving rain, woke up (rather rudely I might add), to ease the sails and get drenched with cold water as the squall snuck up on us.

The radar was on, was supposed to warn of impending troubles,but I had noticed in the night when a cargo ship crossed our guard zones that no alarm went off. Figured I’d investigate in the day light. Well here we are, barely daylight and I should have investigated. So the fresh shower was my procrastination reward.

The radar has so many settings, over the years I probably have tweaked them all, either to show more I show less. I figured it was time to return to factory settings. Voila, all better was showing the tops of every wave in the ocean (not helpful), so a few tweaks for offshore sailing and we are back in business.

After a few hours of “dodge-squall” the skies cleared up and a nice day of sailing was in store. At our nightly SSB radio check in we were happy to report we knocked off 200 miles toward our destination since the last check-in. Yahooo, rocking along.

One bit of breakage, our jib/genoa car said he was tired of holding the sail and let go. The sound is like a guitar string, boing. This is happened on our first trip down to NZ, and once long ago. With some creative macrame(lots of rope and knots), a temporary fix was in place just waiting for a break in the 25knot winds. Added a new bolt, added lock-tite, but it doesn’t seem to be holding. I painted the top with some of Christine’s electric blue toe polish and can see the nut slowly backing off.

Fix part two, is a back up block ready to handle the job if Mr Lazy jib car gives up again.

I think the painters tape will hold, Right?

More weather, wind and waves scheduled for the night watch. Should be fun. Go sailing, it’s all cocktails and sandy beaches…😀

All good, running along, knocking out the miles. 775 left till Point Resolution Vanuatu.

Pushing to the Finish

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One more sleep to till daybreak.. Uh? Loosing your mind??.. Of course daybreak happens after a sleep. Lets try this again, One more sleep till we arrive, there will be plenty of naps between here and there.

Sun is out, wind is cooperating and giving us a boost to arrive in on Thursday morning well ahead of the changing weather. Not taking any chances tho, burning some diesel to make sure. Temperature is brisk, so tolerable with 3 layers on. I’m sure 19C/65F degrees is warm for some.. but it’s darned cold at night. And the cold front hasn’t even arrived yet.

Finally saw sails on the horizon to further the proof that we are going some where. And even more interesting is that we all have ESP and we can read each others mind even if we are miles apart. Imagine the possibilities.

In almost synchronized swimming precision, we all decided to raise the canvas at the same time. Well could have been daybreak and the ‘slow wind’ from over night was starting to fill in enough to use it as propulsion instead of just making noise flapping back and forth.

Ready set raise!

Doing pretty good on finishing the pork products, a couple of chops will be donated to the incinerator as we can’t eat everything. And there is no way Christine will let the pulled pork go to anywhere else, so that’s for lunch and to be followed with Gumbo for dinner since its getting cold..

All in all, nothing but making the miles today, and checking on boats that also on this hear fun passage. And fresh baked cookies, now time for another one of those naps. And restraint, save some cookies for the officials. Must save cookies… Must save cookies.

All good all day, Last night out. 90 miles to go, nice winds, decent seas, scattered clouds

Cheers to tomorrow’s sunrise and learning to speak Kiwi again. Sweet As.