Miles traveled day 8: 98
Miles traveled day 9: 110
Miles traveled total: 989
Miles to Majuro: 865
For the last several days the forecast has been for very light winds. We’ve been sailing along quite nicely, and even mostly in the direction we want to go, with 8-10 knots on the beam. Now the forecast is for the winds to pick up and it’s turned behind us and lightened up a bit and we’re struggling to keep the boat moving. The spinnaker’s up but it keeps filling and collapsing as the swell moves under us and causes us to roll.
Yesterday the skies were clear and blue with no clouds to be seen. Today I think we’re also going to be spared the squally conditions. It’s pretty easy to tell that we’ve sailed up close to the equator again – I’m sitting here at the chart table dripping away with only my fingers moving. We’re at 4 degrees south and the equatorial sun is blazingly hot. When we’re both in the cockpit at the same time we crowd into any space with shade. But we’re well over half way there and that’s always a happy milestone.
Right now if we can maintain 4 knots we’ll be in Majuro by Friday the 13th. If we don’t make it by Friday we either have to slow down and wait until Monday or pay a huge overtime fee for weekend check-in by the authorities. Majuro is a small atoll, with no place to stop and hide unnoticed if we arrive on the weekend. As I look at the GPS right at this moment we’re making 3.3 knots, probably only 2.9 to the good because we’re steering high to try and keep the chute full. The forecast says we’ll have 15-20 knots of wind in 4 days. Right.
Teresa
