At noon today we were at 14 58S 164 52W steering 270M, motoring with single-reefed main at 5 knots. The wind was 4G7 from the NE. Our noon to noon distances were 110nm by the log and 106nm over the ground. Overall we'd logged 966nm and 942nm respectively. Our distance to go was 404nm. Roughly a Freo to Albany.
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| Dawn Today |
Yesterday afternoon the wind held in from the ESE as we weaved between rain storms. By sunset we were surrounded and then sailed in steady rain until nearly midnight. As soon as the clouds cleared away the wind died.
Yesterday evening we tried a HF/SSB sked with several boats. Sadly no one called in but I could clearly hear weather broadcasts from New Zealand on 4146 and 6224kHz. Yesterday I managed to talk with Tony's Maritime Mobile Net in New Zealand on 14315kHz at 2100Z. We could barely hear each-other but it wasn't bad at 1700nm range. I can still hear US west coast amateur nets and am still sending position reports into the APRS system via US east coast stations. Pretty cool.
Att midnight the engine went on and remained so until 1000 this morning. We had a gradually clearing sky overnight and by dawn there were few clouds. At 1000 we shut down the engine to try to sail but that only lasted an hour. The wind died again and the engine went back on.
Our batteries had been sitting between 75 and 85% for the first 5 days of the passage since there was plenty of sun. Over the last two days they gradually declined to 65% due to cloud but they're now up to 95% thanks to the engine alternator.
Trust all's well where you are!
At times like this a motor is great.
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