2º 43.510s 127º 34.229w
Wed May 01 2019
Yesterday
was a spectacular day of sailing. Steady strong breeze, blue skies, no squalls,
great stars during the wee hours. . .
It
all started just before midnight last night. Wind was pooping out and the beam
seas were rolling us, causing the boom to snatch about and the sails to sound
like Rice Krispies. Finally I fired up the port engine and we began slogging
along with just the main all hardened up and the jib stowed.
On
it went through everyone’s watches through the night and up until about 1430
today. After dawn the squalls started coming for us. Mostly just rain, so
JollyDogs got the ole “rinse and repeat” thing, but fortunately no crazy winds.
Just not much energy in the little showers, but it was like they were sucking
all the wind out of the area. Couldn’t even motor sail for several hours, just
had to hammer along. Isabel got all frutrated and grumpy. I began crunching
fuel burn / fuel remaining numbers to see how long we could keep this up.
The
last squall was a doozy, bigger and wetter, and it finally brought the wind.
What Isabel likes to refer to as a “clearing up shower”. We saw just over 20
knots, and when the apparent started climbing to 20+ Thad threw in what he
calls a fisherman’s reef until the wind subsided a bit.
Now
the engine is off, prop feathered, and we’re sailing along between 6 and 8+
knots SOG. Isabel is happy. I’m happy. Thad’s happy. Our average SOG for the
passage has dropped down to 5.7 knots. That’s averaged over 2000 miles, but
we’ve got just under 950 miles to go before we drop the hook. We’re going to
get that sucker back up above 5.8 where it belongs!
Nuka
Hiva or BUST!
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