Cocos-Keeling Outbound Day 4

Hi everyone,
We are currently in position 14 02 S 90 00E, sailing at 6 knots on a course of 255M. The wind is 15-18 knots from the SE with a 2m sea and low swell from the SSW. We are sailing under full yankee and double-reefed main. ie All very similar to yesterday except the wind is a little lighter. Today there's barely a cloud in the sky. Our day's run to 0900 was 148nm and we have 1560nm to run. Nearly 1/4 of the way there!

Yesterday afternoon was fairly cloudy with increased wind under the clouds. Only got up to around 25 knots of true wind though. The boat is loving these conditions and is making good speed considering we have next to no main up. The double-reefed main is oversheeted in an attempt to limit the rolling which is ever-present. Mostly it is gentle rolling but "sets" of waves/swell come through which make the rolls quite violent. I dislike rolling to windward, which is what we do when we come off the back of a bigger cross-swell and sea.

Last night the wind conditions persisted in the evening with the wind and cloud reducing to 18-22 and 1/8 around midnight. After that it was very pleasant. We now spend most of our time below (day or night), just going on deck to lookout every 10 minutes or so. We haven't encountered any traffic since our first evening out when two cargo ships passed well clear.

The moon is gradually waxing as our passage continues. We started with a sliver of moon for a couple of hours after sunset. Each night we get another 40 minutes of moonlight, plus a few minutes more from our movement west! Speaking of moving west we have been using UTC+6 time since departing CKI. We're looking forward to reaching 82 30E where we'll change to UTC+5.

While enjoying the conditions we've been able to organise replacement parts for a few items which failed enroute from Carnarvon to CKI. Firstly our LED tricolour is misbehaving, turning on both tricolour and anchor light at once. It's not a wiring problem because turning both on produces the strobe light as it should. Secondly we managed to shear off the volume knob on our VHF extension speaker which is now silent. Thirdly our automatic danbuoy inflated itself during a pooping so we're getting new water switches and strobes for it. The guys at Yacht Grot in Fremantle have been great sourcing the parts for us, including the light which is not widely sold in Australia.

Our longitude just rolled over into the 80s. Time for some good ol' rock'n'roll!