Day 40

Day 40??!!! Wowee! I can't believe how long we have been at sea for now. It's crazy!! As of tomorrow we really will be on the final countdown as we enter our "arrival week" and it's a very strange sensation because I can't wait to be there and to put my feet on solid ground again but I also quite like our little life at sea and our daily routine! I'm sure as soon as we can smell land I will be desperate to get our anchor set!

The conditions today have been a little more lively than yesterday as the wind increases. I mentioned some weeks ago that our wind instruments packed up so we can only estimate but I would say we have been enjoying force 5 winds for most of the day; easing a little at the moment. We have been seeing 6kts to 6.5kts of speed consistently with occasional 7kts and "surfing" at 8kts; a number that hardly seems possible with the growth of goose barnacles on our hull! These weird little things that look like tiny Venus fly traps are even now growing on our windpilot (self-steering vane) so we are able to get a reasonably good look at them… they are so creepy. I'm not looking forward to scraping them off the hull although I'm not sure we haven't read somewhere that they fall off when you stop sailing; hopefully!!

We left our full sails up when we went to bed last night and reefed them around 4 o'clock this morning when the winds increased and there was a little rain about. The sails have remained reefed all day for comfort and the sea state has risen to a "bouncy moderate" (not technically a nautical term but I always feel "moderate" is a bit too broad!)

Conditions on-board have been a little more frenetic since the winds got up but we had prepared for this and there hasn't been much to do so we have had quite a relaxing day; mostly reading again.

I decided I wanted to have a read through the journals I kept when we first moved aboard Hamble Warrior in 2018. I knew these were in the very back of a cupboard where we store all our sailing books and recipe books so I went rummaging. I managed to find them but it was a terrible idea to go looking for them in the current conditions. As soon as I had located the journals and started trying to replace all the books I had removed, the boat kept lurching and rolling and all the books in the cupboard started flying out at me like a scene in a Harry Potter film! Every time I tried to grab a book and replace it a couple more would fly out and hit me in the face. Jamie was taking his afternoon nap just a few feet away so I had to try and get everything back in the cupboard without making too much noise whilst I was repeatedly smacked in the face with flying hardbacks. What a mistake! I finally wrestled them all back in and have now instructed Jamie not to open the cupboard again until we are at anchor!! It was really interesting to start reading through what I wrote 5 years ago though; starting with our time in the boatyard in Greece when we were getting Hamble Warrior ready to launch for the very first time. I quite like the idea of starting to type up that first couple of years in Greece and the summer we spent crossing the Mediterranean to fill in the gaps before we started keeping our blog.

There isn't a huge amount else to report from today. We are very glad we have the winds now to carry us to Hiva Oa. I am especially pleased that we still have sunshine and blue skies as I was concerned that the increased wind would also mean squally conditions; so far so good on that front but I will pray it stays this way. Other "business we are watching closely" is some further chaffing on the headsail sheet where it passes through the spinnaker pole which Jamie already re-spliced once; it looks like it may need further attention. Finally the sacrificial UV strip on the edge of the headsail is coming away and will need repairing soon. Annoyingly it is out of reach from the deck whilst we are under sail and we are reluctant to furl the headsail fully in the current conditions so again we are monitoring it for the time being.

Otherwise all is well on-board. Meep has had a sleepy day; like the rest of us. He has a tin of tuna on the go as his weekend treat so he is enjoying that and is generally very content.

So the scores on the doors today; a decent daily run of 133nm, leaving just 514nm to go. Looking pretty good for a Thursday arrival at present.