We are currently at 14 48S 100 11E, sailing at 6.5 knots in a 15-18 knot ESE breeze. It is a lovely sunny day with picturesque cumulus clouds scattered across the sky. Definitely champagne sailing today. Our noon-to-noon run was 115nm for a total of 1047nm on the log. For reasons unknown we lost about 30nm on the log last night, which I have added back in the day's run but not the total (to avoid having to carry it forward forever!). We have 250nm to run to Cocos-Keeling.
Last night the wind held in just enough for us to avoid motoring. We were sailing at 3 knots for several hours and the sails were slatting but not violently. Eventually the wind filled back in and we were sailing at 4-5 knots for most of the night. The sky was clear for most of the night and was spectacular. One flying fish stranded itself on deck overnight. We try to help them back into the water if we hear them but this one didn't make itself known until the morning when it was smell that got our attention.
Today the wind has settled in at 15-18 knots and Zen Again is loving it. We're romping along and barely taking a drop of water on deck. We don't often have the top hatch open at sea when doing 6+knots. Late this morning a pod of maybe a dozen dolphins checked us out. They were about the same length as the WA type but seemed slimmer. They were certainly fast. They only hung around for a couple of minutes but it was great to have visitors.
We learned a great little trick from Robert and Lori of sv Apogee. They suggested stuffing all rubbish in a plastic container. They said it's amazing how much you can get in, and they were right. Below is our rubbish after a full week, and there's still room for more! It's great to no longer be just filling plastic bags, stowing them away and hoping they don't burst or leak.
Yesterday and overnight I worked on an issue we've been having with our HF radio. It was transmitting very poorly and apparently failing to tune to each frequency. I tried all sorts of things but swapping the microphone appears to have improved performance. We spoke with Minnie B which is about 400nm west of Cocos-Keeling last night. We spoke with Vulcan Spirit this morning and they were about 120nm NNE of us.
And finally, here's a picture of those clouds!
We bought unlimited data on our Iridium Go! plan so we might as well use it. Hope you're enjoying the photos.
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