Enroute to Easter Island - Day 10

Last night sucked. High winds, big seas. We were tossed around all night and neither of us got much sleep.

However, today has been nice, sunny with about 12-15 knots of wind. Good sailing. We both took long naps to catch up on our sleep.


Conditions finally moderated enough that Dave braved going out on the swim platform at the back of the boat to hook up 'Henry', our Monitor wind vane. For you non-sailors, this is a device that uses mechanical means to steer the boat automatically, relative to the wind. We have been carrying this expensive, pretty, stainless steel device around on the stern of Soggy Paws since 2007, and it (so far) has gotten about 1 hour of use. Normally, we use 'Janet' our electronic autopilot.

Janet has been doing a GREAT job of keeping us on course over all these miles. But on long trips like these, we should be using the Wind Vane.


It's a little bit of voodoo magic to get it set up and working right. Dave bought ours second-hand, and it wasn't put together right. So the first couple of times we tried to use it, it didn't do the job. Dave took it apart and re-assembled it correctly, and we've finally gotten around to setting it up and using it. We tried once on the way to the Galapagos, but the wind was too light for it to be effective.


Henry has been steering now flawlessly for the past 3 hours. Henry's biggest benefit is that he runs without electricity, saving us about 24 amp-hours a day. And he doesn't eat much :) Henry is named after our friend Henry Mikelait, who is another world traveler. We are happy to have Henry guiding us around the world.

600 miles to go! About 4-5 days. We know the wind is forecast to get pretty light as we approach Easter, so we expect to slow down some the last day.

One of the other boats we've been talking to on the radio--s/v Aliisa--who left from Lima, Peru for Easter Island, said he was passed by a big cruise ship, the Oceanic, who's AIS signal said its next port was Easter Island on March 15. There goes the neighborhood! We hope it has come and gone before we get there!
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At 3/11/2010 10:44 PM (utc) our position was 18°20.33'S 104°03.34'W