Happy Trade Winds
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sat 24 May 2008 23:08
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13:52.749S 159:56.758W
Happy trade winds finally revealed themselves
yesterday afternoon and have been pleasantly pushing us along at 6 - 8 knots
ever since. And in the right direction. Our six day trip is now
looking like a five day trip with arrival in the Suwarrow lagoon sometime before
dark tomorrow (Sunday). My, how one day and a little wind from
the proper direction can change things. Hopefully we'll still
be singing the same tune tomorrow...
Fish report: Still no fish.
Rally report: Down another boat. The
Spanish boat, Nutella, dropped out today because the captain received news from
home that his business requires urgent attention. They have turned back
for French Polynesia and have decided to leave their boat there and hurry
home. They do not know when they will be returning and therefore, have
dropped out of the rally. Boo!
After the eight boats we will be losing in
Australia and the three we will be gaining, the total number of World ARC boats
will be down to 29 or 30 (from the original 40). We suspect we will
be quite an exclusive group when we finally arrive back in the Caribbean next
April.
Vanilla report: Two uses of vanilla beans
have been received via email. One: place a vanilla bean in a
container of sugar and use the resulting nicely flavored sugar for everything
from baking to coffee to fruit. Two: place several vanilla beans in
a container and fill the container with vodka. Wait a month or so and a
very nice vanilla extract will result. Excellent. Thank you,
readers, for your contributions to the solution of our vanilla bean
dilemma.
Harmonie equipment report: One autopilot
still down. Captain Don will be spending time with it in Suwarrow.
Also, although the water maker is now working, the salt content of the water is
higher than it should be. Hmmm....is this the beginning of the end of the
filtration membranes that were installed new before we left Baltimore? It
figures that we may have water maker issues when we have two more months of
Pacific travels through relatively remote areas (Cook Islands, Niue, Tonga,
Vanuatu) before we get to Australia in late July. Stay tuned for more on
this saga.
All other systems are in working
order.
Looking forward to our arrival in Suwarrow
tomorrow.
Anne
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