Sailing around the World ( presently at sea, between Fiji and Vanuatu )

A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Tue 6 Jul 2010 03:29
Monday 5th July  2010
 
We are still at sea, with 180 miles to Vanuatu,
03.30hrs  , Another beautifull starrey night, flat sea, and motoring along at 6.8 knots as there is no wind.
We could see a yacht a long way off on our port side,  Skipper feels it could be " Ocean Jasper" but there is no response to the VHF.
 
09.00hrs  The wind fills in , a light 10knot breeze from port, so we rolled out the sails and bore off 10 degrees
That had us sailing nicely at 6 knots. so we shut down the engine after motoring for 12 hours or so.
 
Our chart is very skimpy with details on " Port Resolution"  our destination, so we put a way point on our chart given us by
World ARC. but there is no doubt that we will arrive in the dark.
The funny thing is we have a road map of the Island of Tanna, and it shows more detail of port Resolution than the our chart.
Modern technology my eye.
 
11.45hrs  We are now 2 days at sea, we have covered 309 miles giving an average speed of 6.43 knots
another thing about Vanuatu is,  It is still a country with Malaria,  so we have to take anti Malaria tablets every day..   can you imagine !
Pill poppers , thats what we are....
 
12.00hrs  The world ARC  roll call for all yachts on the SSB, and of course our yoke transmits about 10 miles but can still recieve
up to about 30 miles.   anyway, it seems we are lying about 3rd overall in the pack, having given the fleet a 45 min. head start.
Not bad,
 
For a while in the middle of the day , we had to motor again for a while, frustrating when the wind comes and goes .
When it filled in again, it came from the SW , and after a short time, shifted more southerly and started to build,
by 15.00hrs, we had a solid 26knots fine on our port side, but the seas were flat, so we had some enjoyable sailing,
As the evening approached , we shortened sail to 2 reefs in all sails, and were still doing 7 knots,
 
18.00hrs,  We had overtaken " Ocean Jasper " and we could see no other boat in view, except behind us.
 
Dinner was a " Paella" prepared and cooked by our new member, Daniel, It included some of the wahoo, caught by the skipper
about a month ago now.  the food was very tasty,, yum yum.
By this time it was pissing rain down all over us, so we ate dinner in the " Royal Saloon" on board A Lady.....
The weather was not exactly as predicted, but at least we were sailing along merrily.
 
The night watches  :-               21.00hrs  /  00.00hrs           Skipper,
                                             00.00hrs  /  03.00hrs            Daniel,
                                             03.00hrs  /  06.00 hrs           Scotty  ( John )
                                             06.00hrs  /  09.00hrs            Skipper
 
Thats it for today,
 
Signed  :-    Stephen Hyde      ( Skipper )