Miles today: 127
Miles to go: 1,715 (approx 13-14 days)
Wind ENE at 15-25 kt
Seas ENE at 6-8'
Sailing SE at 5.3kt - 2 reefs in the main, staysail, scrap of genoa
The cloud cover showed signs of breaking up at little this afternoon, and the sat pic I just received confirms that we should be coming out of it soon. But we're still getting squalls.
The good thing is that it looks like the ITCZ is not looking too active ahead of us. But we still have 2 weeks of hard-on-the-wind sailing ahead of us.
We have found lots of new leaks as the waves crash over us and occasionally engulf the deck. We can stay reasonably dry in almost everything except the worst of the squalls, as long as we can keep the boat speed under about 5 kts. Faster than that and we punch some of these steep, closely-spaced waves and send a wall of water washing down the deck. However, keeping the boat speed under 5kts is s-l-o-w and extends our trip by 1-2 days. We are shooting for 5.5 knots, which is fine until a squall comes by, then the wind increases and our speed goes to 6.5 knots, and the waves get bigger. Then we take a big one.
Dave made me reef in a little when a big wave dribbled cold salt water on him while he slept on the couch in the salon.
Are we there yet?
-----
Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com
At 5/5/2011 6:47 AM (utc) our position was 11°57.23'N 153°34.58'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm
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