Dave and I "discussed" all afternoon yesterday whether and when to turn the engine on. Dave's argument was that we'd come almost 3,000 miles to see Pitcairn, and we had a good weather window to do so coming up, and we should motor like hell to get there and make the most of the calm weather. My argument was that this was the best sailing weather we'd had in 4 weeks, and we should enjoy it. His logic prevailed over mine, and we cranked the engine right after dinner last night.
We motorsailed all night in 8-10 knots of relative wind (part of it being made by the forward speed of our engine), making 6 knots straight toward Pitcairn. We are now pretty certain we will arrive between 8 and 9am local time tomorrow (Fri). (ONLY 24 more hours of 'rrrrrrrrrr' of the engine!).
We both got caught up on our sleep last night, both off watch and on watch. The conditions were tranquilo (et tranquil en francais), we haven't seen another vessel in weeks, and we were pretty fatigued from the ordeal of the last week. Each of us slept through at least one 'wake up' alarm while on watch!
This morning, I fixed a nice 'Sunday Breakfast'... scrambled eggs, grits, and toast, and we put up the cockpit table and had a nice civilized breakfast, complete with orange juice (boxed).
With engine on, we've got lots of battery power, so we will likely catch up on computing tasks and charge all the rechargeable batteries on the boat. We might even watch a video of 'Mutiny on the Bounty' this evening.
History Lesson: Pitcairn Island is where the Bounty mutineers ended up after they cast Captain Bligh adrift in one of the longboats. They chose Pitcairn because it was remote. They were (rightly) afraid of being discovered, and hanged for mutiny. Several missions to locate the mutineers were dispatched by the British Admiralty after news of the mutiny reached England.
The descendents of Fletcher Christian and the other mutineers, and the Polynesian families that accompanied them to the island, are still living on Pitcairn. It is now a British protectorate.
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At 4/1/2010 4:20 PM (utc) our position was 24°59.43'S 127°29.04'W
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