16:57.7'S 172:31.2'E
Morning all,
We're sailing! Put the mainsail and spinnaker up sometime yesterday morning and sailed that way most
of the day until a batten worked loose from the mainsail. We had to drop it half way to push the
batten back in and secure it. Then the wind got pretty light and variable and after nearly wrapping
the spinnaker around the forestay we decided to take it down for the night. For the first time in a
long time (Panama maybe?) we've actually seen a few other boats on this trip: three fishing boats.
We passed within a mile of one of them sometime early this morning, it had huge white floodlights
blazing on deck. We had a lovely orange sunrise this morning at just before 6 over a somewhat
lumpier ocean. Now we're sailing along, goose-winged under main and jib (mainsail out on one side,
jib out on the other). We're not making our best speed but when there's 16 knots blowing you where
you want to go it just seems crazy to have that big smelly engine rumbling away, burning all that
diesel for the sake of another knot or two of speed.
So not much to report really except we're still here, and Vanuatu is getting closer: about 300nm
away now. Lotsa love, Mike & Sarah
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