25:28.981 S  1278:05.487 W

14/6/08  13:00

The young watch report seeing a whale spout this morning a couple of hundred meters from the boat.  This has prompted them to put out the fishing line again.  As it’s started raining, maybe we’ll get a bite.

14:00

We’ve set the clocks back another hour to GMT-8.  We might have to do it again on Tuesday.

We have been rewarded with a young blue fin tuna 2 ½-3 kilos.  We know what we’re having tonight. And it stopped raining.

15:00

The heavens have opened up and dropped torrential rain on us for the last 10 minutes.

15:20

And Again.

15:40

And Again. 

Not only that, the wind is blowing strongly on the nose and we have to motor.

17:00

Sailing again.  Wind back to North Force 4.

16/6/08  03:00

The fish was excellent.

Dark Night. No sunset. Sailing nicely.  Should arrive very early Tuesday AM.

16/6/08  10:00

Another grey day; squalls on the horizon but not for the moment on us.

Wind NNW Force 4, we’re about 10 degrees off course.  AORE wouldn’t play again this morning and I’ve logged on to POR (Pacific Ocean Region) for the first time, so we must be officially in the Pacific….even though it looks like the Atlantic out there.

Just finished Andrea Levy’s absolutely wonderful “Small Island” (Whitbread 2005).

I was very sorry to get to page 530, i.e. the end.

12:00

Two big squalls are lurking 6 miles either side of us.  Hoping they will miss.

Yesterday’s run was 174 miles including 2 ¾ hours of motoring.  Pitcairn is another 112 miles so we will have to slow down as we approach to wait for daylight.

As I write this it looks like at least one of the squalls will pass behind us.