17.29S 157.14W 12th September 2011
Mojo 2
Andrew Partington
Tue 13 Sep 2011 00:52
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We have passed the half way mark to Palmerston from
Tahiti but progress remains very slow. We have been motoring now for a couple of
hours since the last remnant of breeze died.
After considering using the motors yesterday
afternoon we ended hanging in there with the genneker. Throughout last night we
had a pretty consistent 8-10 knots to keep us moving. We had set the genoa and
genneker up winged out so we were able to maintain around 4 knots of boat speed.
At midnight the wind shifted about 20 degrees to the south which forced us to go
back to just the genneker.
This morning a rain system passed over us bringing
with it 12 knots of wind but this faded once the system had left us. Eventually
by late morning the wind had died to 3 knots so we gave up any hope of
sailing.
The weather this aftenoon is once again perfect.
Clear skies, flat sea and about 26 degrees. Back to just shorts
again.
At around 10am we passed very close to two pods of
humpback whales. With both of them I did not see them until they were 100 metres
to our starboard side. In total there must have been 7-8 whales. They gave us a
good look at them and one gave as a tail slap as we departed.
......I'm back. We just had a big strike
on a lure followed quickly by another but didn't hook the fish. The second
strike we gave up metres of line before it escaped.
Just as Rob was pulling the line in to check the
lure we got a pretty good look at the 5-6 foot shark that must have bitten it.
It came in for another go just 20 metres behind the boat. Amazingly the first
good sized shark I have seen in close to 10,000NM of sailing.
We sailed just 100NM yesterday and are 339NM for
our next stop in Palmerston.
Great to hear that Sam Stosur won the US
Open!!
Andrew.
Whoa!! another huge strike just as I was about to
send the blog and this one got away as well. The reel was screaming for about 10
seconds before it escaped.
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