S17:09 W158:27

… and a very positive one too!

Another gorgeous sunset and equally mirrored sunrise this morning. At approx. 0615 the sky begins to brighten and then a line of burnt orange begins to fill from the distant waterline until the sun itself peeks over the horizon and the new day has begun.

Last night two of the Book Club's founding members finished books with Bron multi-managing several books on the go, challenging! Not sure if Tom is reading anything at the moment, so will ask and let you know before this email is sent.

The Fishing Club had lines out again yesterday with Tom having his fishing licence back once again and we hooked something big because it took all the line before it suddenly snapped and another of our big catches and lures is gone. The line whizzed out so fast it had to have been a monster!

This morning we have a number of squalls to our port side and so far they have all missed us with only a smattering of rain and wind shifts of up to 22knots.
My alarm buzzed at 0530 so I got up out of bed to handover with Bron who had been on shift since 0400 manning Walkabout. It was then that we saw the first of the squalls and so we reefed the Genoa in preparation. Since then its been Genoa in and out in and out shake it all about! Andrew, Tom and I are now currently in the cockpit waiting for the next one to overtake us! We know it's coming as we can see it clearly behind us, a big grey hulk of a cloud with streams of rain pouring from beneath it.

We have all once again enjoyed the SSB net that runs at 0900 and 1800 each day. Bron took the reins yesterday evening updating the other boats on how Walkabout had fared since the morning net.
Bron has settled into life on the BIG BLUE really well and we are loving our new shift pattern too! Since Bron joined Team Walkabout, we have moved to a two hour shift pattern meaning we all get a good six hours rest between shifts. Andrew started us off at midday when we left Bora Bora and crossed the start line (even though the ARC Pacific is not a race!!) Bron then takes over followed by me and then Tom who hands-over back to Andrew. It’s a four day cycle and allows us all to rest during the day, and we have allocated the two early evening shifts to cook each night and wash up afterwards. The morning shift (aka this one) is the blog writing shift so you can enjoy each of our different writing styles as an update each day.

Yesterday was a rather frustrating day with multiple sail changes, wind shifts and big rolling seas. We had the BWR up for about an hour but that had to come down when we saw a squall behind us and the wind began to increase. We download the weather report each morning and roughly plan the day from there. What direction to go to gain the best wind and angle of wind and avoid the most squalls without travelling too far from the rhum line. We had so many sail changes and wind changes that Andrew was perplexed and frustrated that we simply couldn’t win!  Following a WhatsApp chat with Casamara (thanks to Starlink), there was a hastily arranged Governance and Strategy Sub Committee meeting. This resulted in a change of routing strategy at about 1600hrs.  We had been planning to stay north of the rhum line, but due to the difficult wind angles and potentially challenging swell forecast, we decided to head south of the line.  The next few days will tell if this has been a good change!

PS Tom has a number of books to read but is not currently reading but listening to Peter Crouch podcasts and music.

Thats it from Team Walkabout today, we shall be back online same time tomorrow.

Loads of love
T,A,T&B xxxx