Walkabout - Day 8 - 1000 nautical miles DONE!

S7:31 W106:28

A wonderful feeling on board Walkabout today as we passed the 1000nm milestone since leaving Galapagos and we are roughly a third of the way to Hiva Oa! We also clocked up our biggest 24 hour run of this trip so far - 181nm.

Its been another cloudy day with little sun, a few sail changes but mainly goose-winging downwind or wing-on-wing sailing which means we have the Genoa poled out on our port side and the mainsail is on our starboard side and the wind is almost directly behind us. Its been a little rolly at times and therefore we move around the boat ‘one hand for us and one hand for the boat’ making simple things like making lunch or even going to the toilet challenging!

But that hasn’t stopped us eating well and enjoying the Mahi Mahi we caught the previous day. We feasted on a breakfast of cereal yogurt and pineapple followed by wraps for lunch with homemade coleslaw, cheese and ham and for dinner we shared bowls of kedgeree on a bed of lettuce. We are all going to need to get those trainers on and go for a few early morning runs once we hit land again!

The girls of the ARC Pacific fleet agreed to follow an exercise program while on passage which was a great idea. So far I have done one day of exercises as the movement of the boat swaying just hasn’t been conducive to it so fingers crossed I can make up for lost time over the coming few days.

Its currently 0700 and we are sailing in 18 knots of wind, achieving 7.5 knots of boat speed after what has been a pretty calm and peaceful night. ‘Into the Mystic’ are still on our port side roughly 10nm away and its always a great feeling knowing you have boats nearby. We called them up last night on the VHF to wish them goodnight and hopefully a chat in the morning.

The phosphorescence at night has been incredible. Such a pity we are unable to capture it on film. As Walkabout ploughs through the waves at night, the disturbed water is full of little tiny jewels of light that are so captivating to watch. They spread out from behind the boat in a bed of sparking night lights twinkling away before disappearing about 3-4m away.

You can easily lose hours of time staring up at the stars. We can now and have done for some time, see the southern cross compilation which I am so familiar with but haven’t seen since I was last in Australia, a sure sign we are in the Southern Hemisphere and heading to Australia.

Walkabout also changed time zones yesterday lunch so we are slowly moving towards Hiva Oa time so when we arrive we are in the zone of local time. Its a little tricky as the SSB net that we join in with the other ARC pacific fleet is also changing times and that changed the day before so we have three time zones to deal with;
1.Walkabout time: we have 3.5 hrs of time to adjust to before we reach Hiva Oa and our chart plotter, watches and mobiles have all been adjusted
2.SSB Net time: this will change 3 times over the course of our passage so all boats can keep track and log in to the net
3.The boat clock; this remains on Galapagos time as our ARC Pacific paperwork for arrival has to be completed in departure time not arrival time.

The sun is up and the boys are still snuggled up in bed catching up on sleep. Breakfast will be about 0800 and will probably consist of cereal yoghurt and fruit again. Eggs and bacon tomorrow and I know Tom will be looking forward to that!

Fishing will commence today as Fish Whisperer Tom’s fishing licence has been returned! :) We haven’t begun to open the freezer yet which is full of chicken to roast, mince to make lasagna and bolognese and home caught fish to be used up. We are going to ‘waddle’ off walkabout when we arrive!

We hope the sun is shining and you are all enjoying ‘Wednesday Hump Day’.
Loads of love and best wishes to you all from Walkabout's crew xxx
T,A&T xxx