21.50S 172.57E
Mojo 2
Andrew Partington
Thu 6 Oct 2011 01:56
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Yes, we are still out here and yes, the wind is
still blowing from the west and yes, we are both bloody sick of
it!!
We have had every variety of west wind over
the past 24 hours and even had a few repeat performances. We've
had south-south-west, south-west, west-south-west, west, west-north-west
and even north-west. We have changed out set-up about a dozen times in 24 hours
and a few of them were in the middle of the night. I don't want to go on about
this [but I am anyway!] but it has been a real pain. We planned to sail south of
Hunter Island but there is now no chance of that happening because we have been
forced so far north.
Disaster struck yesterday with the loss of the
purple lure that I have towed over 5000NM. All was well until I went to reel the
lure in at the end of the day and it was missing. I had already nominated it for
the "Halco Hall of Fame" but alas it will not happen now!! Rob has
this "Pinocchio" theory going. He recons that it wanted to be a real fish and so
swam away to be with it's brothers and sisters and that he was sure he heard it
whisper "I want to be a real fish!!" I think it is time Rob spent some time back
on land as he may be developing cabin fever!! Red rum, red rum....little
pigs!! Okay, maybe I need to get back to shore as well.
Had a flying fish land on the deck last night, the
first one since the other side of Tahiti. These ones are huge though, much
bigger than others that have crashed into us. I had one fly by me in the middle
of the night two nights ago and it scared the living daylights out of me.
Beautiful day today and the perfect breeze for
sailing if you wanted to head east, but we are still trying to go west and at
2.30pm I can hear the whine of the starboard motor in the
background. We have a headwind at 8 knots as we try to work our way to the
east coast of New Caledonia. Maybe a change to the
south soon!!
We have taken a bit of a shortcut but still have
324NM to go to make it to Noumea.
Andrew.
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