8th Sept - Day 8
SY Saphir -
Jeff & Doreen
Fri 9 Sep 2022 02:45
14:13s 171 43w
We heard early today the sad news about the Queen passing away. She will be a hard act to follow and was certainly one of the old school.
Noon to noon run for us was 158nm so keeping up a good average overall. The wind has remained quite fresh today with generally 20+ knots from the ESE so much so that we have kept the 2nd reef in the main. The seas have increased somewhat and are giving the autopilot a bit of a hard time. When ever I helm for a while to check the trim it all seems OK and pretty easy to steer so I think it is as good as it can be.
As predicted we passed between Samoa and American Samoa this morning on the watch from 6.00 to 9.00 and yes they do have the same time but a different day. Our phones picked up the local signal and suddenly said it is Friday when passing Samoa — BUT it isn’t! We have not crossed the date line yet! For a while we could not decide what day it actually was and had a confusing 5 minutes :) We are due to cross the date line at about 02.00 tomorrow (Friday) morning and then it will be Saturday - I think!
The weather update we received earlier today keeps on saying more of the same, ESE between 15-20, so if it holds we should have a good sail for the rest of the passage.
When we charge the batteries using the engine we put it in gear to load the engine up. I have noticed an unusual noise coming from the Saildrive over the past few days which I have narrowed down to the sail drive when it is in gear. You don’t get it if you let the propellor spin without the engine on. It sounds like a bearing type of noise. One of the things that I wanted to do when preparing the boat was replace the engine and sail drive unit but decided to would probably be OK. I hope that I don’t rue the day I said that! I am sure it will get us to Australia and I will be able to remove the sail drive and recondition it.
As I write we have 730nm to go.
Another good day.
Cheers
Saphir