April 24, 2011

Sailing in the South Pacific-Day 15: Smooth Sailing No More

Remind me again why I wanted steady SE trades? They kicked in yesterday. But instead of providing a gentle downwind sleigh-ride the emergence of a mirror image ITCZ just to the south and west of us means the trades have strengthened and are more south than east--which means we are close on the wind in lumpy conditions.

Despite the weather (and the fact that Blue Moon publicly admitted to having rabbit (aka the Easter Bunny) for dinner last night) the bunny found our boat. And being a little kid, Maia woke at dawn to search for chocolate, which was pretty much the time when I wanted to be asleep. Easter eggs are kind of round--and round things on a rolly boat tend to roll. Which made the hunt a unique one. Maia stationed herself in the middle of the cabin and simply waited for eggs to pass by.

We'll have to see how our plans for Easter dinner work out. I got some nice ham from Carne del Mundo and we're planning a few special dishes. The seas and upcoming squalls may have their own opinion about our plans though.

The days continue to zoom past though. Mostly they have been problem free but yesterday Evan noticed the sumbrella cover on our Genoa was starting to come unstitched and after a hard night's sailing it's in even worse shape. So one of the first details of our day is to do some repairs on it.
I'll keep this brief for now. Lots to do today and it sounds like it might get exciting weather wise. I guess the whole trip couldn't be gentle and benign but hopefully it won't end with the same conditions we started with.
650 miles to go.
Yesterday's run 144 miles

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