09:02S 118:44W

 

daily run - 158mls

miles to go - 1184

 

As our weather guru predicted, the boisterous winds we’d had for 10 days eased overnight.  Being well reefed down (two reefs in the main and the genoa about two thirds out) we were a feeling under canvassed and at times Bandit slowed to 3-knots, dropping our daily run.  But there was still the odd squall going through when the wind would gust back up to 20 knots so we played safe opting to have a slow night rather than be caught out.  Truth is, neither of us could be bothered shaking a reef out anyway!  It was wonderful to sleep without the roaring noise of the water surging by, the roller coaster feeling as we surfed down waves (the fastest we saw was 13.3knots!) and a definite easing in the horrid motion we’d had up until now.  It’s probably the first night in more than a week that we’ve both had a really good sleep.....if you can call five hours good! 

 

During a trip like this it’s always comforting to have someone back in internet access keeping an eye on the weather and our good friend Mark on Balvenie is our go to weather guru.  We’ve sailed with Mark and Amanda since 2011 when we crossed the Atlantic together and during the past two Caribbean seasons we’ve cruised Venezuela, Colombia, Belize, Mexico, Cuba and parts of the eastern seaboard of the US with them.  Having a fellow cruiser send you regular updates is good because you know they will include a fair dollop of sympathy when things are not going so well!  Best of all though is that they know what kind of conditions Bandit likes, how she reacts and what conditions we are prepared to venture out in.  We’ve spent many hours in anchorages with Balvenie debating the weather before a passage and analysing it afterwards!  During the past week when the conditions really haven’t been kind to us Mark has kept us buoyed up by saying it would improve by the weekend.  He was right!  Thanks Mark.

 

We can also download grib weather files through our satellite phone which tell you the wind and wave direction, but all this is computer generated stuff done from weather prediction models and consequently can be quite wrong. We find the winds often stronger than the gribs tells us and of course they cannot predict all the wave patterns which make for a confused sea and uncomfortable ride!

 

But now things are easier. We have been running with the genoa poled out and the wind at about 135 degrees aft but have now gybed it back and are sailing a pretty good course towards Fatu Hiva. We have come further north on our course than desired because Bandit has a bit of a blind spot when the wind is at 120 degrees aft where it needed to be to lay a direct track to our destination. If we flew our spinnaker it would solve one problem, but create many more!!!  Cruisers don’t often fly the coloured sails for a good reason especially when they are dual handed.

 

We’ve just had our morning coffee along with freshly baked strawberry and banana muffins and there’s freshly baked bread on the galley bench.  Life is suddenly much better than it was 24 hours ago,