Shawn jumps overboard!

Well, we knew that yesterday was going to be the lightest winds we were going to experience on the passage, and it was with a record 70nm over the 24 hours from midnight Wednesday to midnight Thursday. Even though in “the models” we say we will motor at 5kts if we fall below 3kts sailing, we all decided that it was better to enjoy the day.

At one stage, when we were sailing at 0.5kts, we decided to drop the sails and take advantage of the large body of water we were sailing on for something other than sailing. We rigged a harness and tied off to the boat, then I had the honour of jumping in first. We found that with the current alone the boat continued to move along at about 0.5kts.

Sorry for the quality of the pic, but on the chart plotter you can see the jog north westerly while we drifted with no sails.

We had to briefly start the engine as we had so little “steerage way” on we could not get Turtlebones around to catch what little wind there was.

Sharon took the time with the quiet seas to bake another loaf of bread and served up a great dinner. No raw veggie hotdogs for this crew. (and yes I did the dishes – again!)

The winds started picking up and continued to do so all night long. As usual I had the 4am to 7am shift and enjoyed a beautiful sunrise.

We have all read the old saying “Red skies in the morning, sailors take warning. Red skies at night, sailor’s delight.” I have read before that statistically it is not meaningful, but then according to Scientific American it has some truth! Luckily for us it has not been a bad omen and we have had a glorious sailing day.

We did fall a little behind after such a slow day Thursday and most models show us arriving at Hiva Oa midnight or thereafter on the 25th. We will likely shorten sail to ensure we arrive after sunrise on the 26th.

We are now at 00 44.943N and 135 20.487W, so into the last degree before the equator. We are less than 40nm before we cross, which should be about 10pm tonight! What will King Neptune have to say to us?