Miles traveled last 24 hours: 117
Miles traveled to date: 544
Miles to Hiva Oa: 2,583
We slogged along all day yesterday listening to the sails slat and making about 3 knots. It was tiring, that’s for sure. Then after we listened to the net at 5:00 we realized the wind really wasn’t that far south of us, so we decided to roll up the jib and motor south for a while.
At 8:30 I woke up to hear Rob rolling the jib back out and turning off the motor. We had 17 knots from the east and that put us on a course directly for the Marquesas! The wind filled in enough that our friends on Carina, who are about 150 miles north of us also reported wind on this morning’s net. So now it finally feels like we’re on our way.
So far we’ve had few equipment issues. When we had the spinnaker up for 2 days it was on the other side from where the halyard hangs, so it was laying over the top of the roller furling. Unfortunately I didn’t tighten up the halyard when I jibed it over and it was chafing. Luckily we dropped it before it chafed through, but it was only another day from parting and sending our chute into the drink. We also had a reefing line for the mainsail chafe through at the end that ties the sail to the boom at 4:00 one morning when Rob was on watch. That’s also a minor problem since it was at the end of the line. One thing we do know for sure, though, is that you can never have too many bow shackles onboard. I wish we had another dozen right now.
And I wish I had another can of baking powder. Rats. No more beer bread, because it uses a bunch of baking powder.
Teresa
