Noon to noon run of 157nm - which keeps our average in the right place. 464 nm to Hiva Oa

It has been quite a grey day out here today with some light rain and temperatures around 26C, probably the first day we have not had a blue sky all day. I understand that the temperature in the Southern part of the UK was 31C today which is a hot day for England. I have been generally surprised with the temperatures we have had especially at night. They have been lower than I would have expected so much so that you need a light jacket at night and long trousers. 

We have had a good 24hrs sailing following on from yesterdays excellent run with the winds generally in the 18/20 knot range and occasionally higher in some squalls that came through. At one point we had two reefs in the main but right now we are back to full sail and are sailing at approx 6 knots in 14 knots of wind. The problem we have is the wind has backed more or less E now and we are not able to lay a direct course for Hiva Oa so are slipping to the south of our rhumb line. It means we will have to put in a gybe at some point before we get there. The forecast is showing that we should have winds from the E between 12 - 16 knots until Monday and then it will increase. However I hope we will be in by late Monday all being well.

One nice surprise today is that we found some vacuum packed sausages in the bottom of the fridge that we did not know we had so that is Sundays dinner sorted out because it seems obvious that we will not be having any fresh fish! However we have been going through propane for the cooker at an alarming rate and are now down to our last bottle. We carry four Blue Camping Gas bottles which in the Uk and Europe are normally filled with Butane but you can only get Propane in the Caribbean and Panama. A bottle normally lasts 2 weeks but they have only been lasting 5 days and we put our last one on today! I will have to make sure I weigh them the next time I get them filled as they cannot have been filled correctly last time. Something else to watch out for on our check lists.

I have just been reading my log for the trip across the Atlantic last December and my closing comments at the end of the trip. One of the comments was:-

I had forgotten I had written that but as we are in the Pacific and it was a joint decison to come here I will try and get some words from my wife into the next blog about her thoughts on this adventure. That is probably harder then it sounds…..

That is all for now. 

Cheers

Saphir