On the way to Niue
Gudrun V
Axel Busch
Fri 7 Sep 2012 22:17
I dropped the mooring line at 7:30 this morning and turned away from the island. Moyo said good-bye from the, Miepke blew it's horn, and Schuessel was also on Deck waving and snapping photos. THen they all looked a little confused while I turned a few circles just south of the mooring field, but I had to calibrate the autopilot and the manual says to do this in calm conditions.
No calm conditions outside the pass. Wind is quite gusty around 25kn, waves are only 2m but short and with no rythm. The boat is rolling a lot. Wind is from the east, and my destination is pretty much straight to the west. Which means I have to tack downwind to make life on a monohull bearable. After looking at the wave forecast I decided to tack south first for a few days, because it looks like the wave direction will turn further south the closer I get to Niue. Approaching Niue from the south rather then the north will allow me to have the waves more from the back than the front.
At the moment only the Genoa is up because the wind is not very steady. It should settle a little over the next few days and then I'll pull up the parasailor, which is much more comfortable.
Looks like lunch today will be mostly fruit, and dinner bread, cheese, ham and eggs.
Matt from Mojomo (www.mailasail.com/mojomo) send a photo of a fish he caught but can't identify. Judging by size, fins, tail, and stripes it very much looks like a Barracuda to me. But Matt says the teeth are wrong. Says it might be a spanish mackerel, but the sp m has dots and no stripes. A King Mackerell has stripes but is only found in the Atlantic. Mysterious! Any idea anybody?