Underway for the Tuamotus Tuesday night

12º 05.867s 142º 02.140w

Wed May 29 2019

Underway for Tuamotus 3

Well, the ECMWF model on PredictWind has been remarkably accurate on this passage. We absolutely blasted along for the first 24 hours, with an average speed over ground of 6.9 knots, and now the wind is moderating. Ship’s time is 2130 (we’re UTC-10 hours) and we’re tooling along at around 5.6 knots now with the expectation that we may be motor sailing for a few hours tomorrow. Just part of the game, and we’ve got plenty of diesel. We’re 31 hours and 211 nautical miles into a 500 nm passage, so by morning we’ll be half way with an aim to arrive around 0700 Friday morning. Should work out.

The day has been beautiful – clear and sunny with following seas up to 1.5 meters, but those are moderating along with the wind. A highlight of the day was when we were winding in our fishing yoyos this evening; I noted that either the lure grew a whole lot or there was something attached to it. Seaweed way out here?

We had a small yellow fin tuna, enough for a nice meal or two, and when I asked Isabel if we should have mercy upon its soul, lightning flashed from her eyes and she gave me the big “thumbs down”. She should have been a Roman emperor. Mr. Tuna the gladiator died a quick death and now there’s sushi grade fish in the fridge. Wonder what’s for lunch tomorrow?

The wind has gotten a bit variable in both strength and direction this evening, so “Chevy”, our autopilot is in wind mode and has been working a bit hard with the following seas. As the boat shuffles around the motion becomes part of the measured apparent wind, and so Chevy exerts more effort than if we were in heading or nav mode to a distant waypoint. Conditions are variable enough that either of those modes leads to slack sails and more snatch loads on everything, so a bit of extra electrical power burn to keep the little autopilot hydraulic pump going is worth the trouble to reduce the wear and tear.

The batteries were down around 64% charge at dawn this morning, but with the sunny day and our Southwest heading they were topped around noon. Hopefully we’ll see more sun tomorrow, as I’m betting they’ll be a bit lower by dawn with all this autopilot action.

It’s a beautiful night tonight with planets and stars and the Milky Way blazing away up there, and already several shooting stars have been visible. A great evening to listen to music or catch up on podcasts while staring up at that great big sky. Makes me feel like a flea on an elephant’s ass. . .