Sunday afternoon
Well for a day there it looked like we were headed to the Marquesas for a stop to catch up on our sleep and load up on fresh pamplemousse! I'll let John explain the technical reasons behind that:
It's been a tough couple of days for sailorizing. The wind, never what you would call 'fair,' has turned to NE, pretty much the exact direction we want to travel (i.e., a headwind). So we were faced with a choice. Head West (or North West) and give up all the Easting we'd already fought so hard for, or go South East and conserve our Easting but make absolutely no progress towards Hawaii.
Our initial choice was to head NW, but then the wind shifted even more and NW became more like W. So we tacked onto Port Tack and sailed slowly to the ESE, basically just waiting for the wind to shift back into the E.
Last night it finally did, and we set as much sail as we can handle to go North - as fast as possible. It looks like the trough that caused the NE winds is going to spawn another low pressure system to our South, which will bring more NE winds to the area we are in now. Hopefully by then we will be 300 miles North of here and it won't have as bad an effect on us.
Got all that?! I know...
We've seen mostly Tropic Birds and Booby Birds, Shearwaters, and one Frigate Bird this first week. The adult Masked Boobies are easiest to identify with their distinct black and white markings. I think a Red-footed Booby was checking us out one morning. They have several color "morphs" and this one was all dark grey-brown with a dark grey beak (which makes it a Juvenile according to our Seabirds book). Unfortunately they all keep their legs tucked up tight when they're flying and I can never see what color the feet are. I also caught a brief glimpse of a lone dolphin surfing down a couple of wave faces before it disappeared. And John says he had dolphins swimming on our bow last night.
It was getting a bit discouraging to think of having to start our trip all over again from the Marquesas, but now we're romping towards our real destination (Hawaii!) and spirits are up again.
Linda and John
Day 6 Stats
Course: 339 degrees True
Trip Mileage: 37 nm
Water Temp: 81.3 to 81.7 F
Engine Hours: 1.7
Day 7 Stats
Course: 008 degrees True
Trip Mileage: 57 nm
Water Temp: 81.7 to 82.4 F
Engine Hours: 0
{GMST}06|42|S|143|53|W|Tuamotus to Hawaii Day 7|Day 7{GEND}
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