Walkabout - Day 13 - The wind playing tricks

S 07:03 W118:57

As I came up to take over from Andrew on my night shift Andrew told me that once again the wind had made a 40 degree wind shift and was now at 130 degrees, we were no longer on a heading to Hiva Oa, more like Hawaii!!

This has happened the past 2 night as well. We have made our sail plan and gone into the night happily and it has lasted well, until the early hours where the wind decides that it is going to take us on its own course. In some cases this hasn’t been to bad but other times it has been a pain and only increases our overall miles sailed. Andrew decided at 5am that we needed to take the BWR down and put the main up (with 1 reef in) and pull the Genoa out. This was great for me and Andrew as we were already awake. Not so good for Traci who was fast asleep. We soon enough had our course and sails set of Hiva Oa. Making 7-8 knots over the ground in 16 knots of wind on the beam. If the wind dies down we will put the G1 (a big lightweight Genoa effectively). We are getting pretty slick with our sail changes, yesterday we came out of the night with the BWR up, changed to main and Genoa due to wind angle, wind then dropped off so G1 went up, in the evening we put the BWR up again for the night, 5am we dropped the BWR and changed to Main and Genoa again, you get the idea. Each change takes about 45mins-1 hour so it not something we want to be doing to much of.

As the sun starts rising we can start to get an idea of what the clouds are looking like. Today mainly a clear sky apart from a big band of cloud to our north. We need all of this sun for the solar, the last week we have struggled to get enough power into the batteries due to how much cloud cover there has been. ( how was that Paddy, the little man is here watching the sunrise and helping write the email).

The cooking club has been back in action with pineapple fruit cake, I keep getting told that food like the won’t last long in this heat so they need to be finished off in a couple of days. This doesn’t seem to be an issue. Every cup of tea can easily be accompanied by a large slice of cake and it also makes for a pretty tasty night shift snack. We are still on our eating all defrosted food out of the broken freezer, yesterday lunch was coronation chicken with left over tuna pasta bake. Evening was burritos, and today more fresh rolls are being made to finish off the beef mince in the form of burgers Jamie Oliver style (other recipes are available).

I still have a ban on the fishing front. The freezer is still broken and so apparently we don’t have room for a few nice fillets. Seems like poor excuse to me….

Yesterday was jobs day, a couple of repairs on board to some not very major parts. Bathroom cleaning was on the agenda as well. Of course I took full responsibility being the domestic goddess that I am. Its fair to say its looking pretty shiny now.

We have been struggling to hear a lots of the other boats on the SSB (single side band) radio the last few days. We believe it is due to increase in power going through the solar panels somehow disrupting the signal. Whoever has to listen to it must endure what we are sure is some sort of torture as the white noise is awful

We have now sailed 1900 miles and have 1179 miles to go we are getting there.

This is the second time of writing this blog as the first was deleted by the Mac book.

Love to all

Tom, T and A xx