Thursday, March 25, 2010

Easter Island to Pitcairn Island - Day 2

We left Easter yesterday after a very rushed morning clearing out and getting the boat ready. The winds were honking along the south coast of Easter as we sailed west... 20-25 knots. It wasn't too bad until we cleared the west end of the island and got exposed to the full sea. Big waves!! We had several waves break and wash green water over the top of our dodger.

Things gradually calmed down last night--except for a few 30 knots squalls. This morning the wind went to nothing (something we expected) and we turned the engine on and started motoring SW. We are hoping to find good winds on the other side of the Low that we're motoring across (but the latest GRIB weather files show the windy area receding almost as fast as we're going).

There is a complex group of highs and lows in this area and we're trying to thread our way underneath a low and over a high, but NOT in a 'squash zone'. We are amazed at how relatively accurate the GRIB files are way out in this remote corner of the world. Thank goodness for Sailmail and Saildocs (how we get our weather files).

This could be a long trip!

It is saying a lot that I got a better night's sleep last night on passage than I did the last 3-4 nights at Easter Island.

That's what we call 'Adventure Cruising'!!
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At 3/24/2010 11:14 PM (utc) our position was 29°01.40'S 110°45.23'W

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