Blue skies yield calmer seas and wind where we want it...just getting a bit light
Sea Mist > Sold to New Owners July 2016
John and Cheryl Ellsworth
Mon 16 May 2011 02:59
Sea sickness is a distant memory.....and with the disappearance of Malade de
Mer, then Chez Cheryl's advance cooking is winning again....and Sea Mist is
behaving well > knock on wood!
The sea water temp has risen by 3 degrees C to 23 C / 73.5 F....and the
warmth of the sun is a bit more penetrating than the last month in NZ...so
it seems like we are getting indications that we are headed the right
direction to find the tropics....they will be most welcome!
We always speak about choosing the right weather window for our
passages.....this run from NZ to Fiji is no exception for sure. We have
several friends who were impatient with their waiting to get going and left
one week before us....they have had a really tough struggle and had only
reached about the half way point when we left....7 days to achieve 500
miles...now that is a struggle....and now, on the shortwave radio, we are
hearing them speak of running out of fuel although they have been using it
sparingly. And they have had some things go wrong also....2 of our friends
have lost the ability to run a headsail so not much windpower...and one had
a line get into the water and wrap the prop so no engine propulsion until it
magically gets calm enough to take a chance on jumping into the water for a
swim to remove the entanglement....NOT AN EASY thing to do in the sea
conditions that have been experienced....so he is putting that plunge off by
the day...now into 3rd or 4th day since it happened.
Our new Doyle mainsail is performing well...a big difference from our
original mainsail. And all the work done in NZ is paying off in many
ways...such as a MUCH drier cockpit with the seas smashing over the top of
the deck and running over the dodger/bimini/enclosure....nice to keep the
cockpit comfortable by keeping the seas and the rain out. We had quite a
number of squalls late yesterday and through the night as the weather
systems fought with one another....the new system pushing the old system out
and off to the east.
That's all for now folks.
DTG 826 nm