We have 283 miles to go and should be in Saturday lunch time. Life goes on in the routine of b'fast, reading, doing the roll call of positions on the SSB radio, doing the emails, reading, lunch, catching up with sleep from doing the night watches, reading, listening to music, happy hour, evening meal and then setting the sails for the night watches. We usually reef a little as the wind often increases at night.
We had a particularly bad Bank holiday Monday. We attempted to gybe on to std and work back North. The yellow uphaul got wrapped around the top genoa swivel so that it had only allowed part of the sail to come out. The pole would not come down because of the friction around the sail. I eventually managed to throw a rope over the pole to get to a position where Matt could reach the uphaul. we eventually managed to undo the wrap around the sail but it would not come off the swivel and so we couldn't furl the sail. In the meantime while we had been concentrating on this, the sail that had come out had wrapped around the part that hadn't unfurled including the sheets so we were up the creek without a paddle!. I furled the main put on the engine and took the boat in std circles and eventually we managed to undo the wraps and free the sheets. I tried 3 more times to set the pole. the uphaul was clear right to the sheave each time, but as soon as we unfurled the genoa it wrapped again. I gave up and set the staysail goosewinged with preventer and so we lost speed, but were safe. Our VMG is down to 5kts now so I may go back on to the port gybe and pole out the genoa again. The yellow uphaul certainly doesn't like being taken over to the std side!
We ran for over 2 days like this and then gybed back to port and reset the genoa goosewinged with the pole. We are now on a reasonable course to Hiva Oa.
Yesterday we caught a lovely big Dorado, which tasted delicious. We still have enough for another meal for 5 tonight. Our water is lasting out so we will soon be looking forward to a shower! Ann is busy defrosting the fridge. There is hardly a cloud in the sky and the temperature is comfortable. We live in tee shirts and shorts. All the news for now Bob signing off.