Lat: 24 11.380′ S
Lon: 179 39.244′ W

After an unexpectedly good day of sailing on our first day out from Raoul, we’ve encountered the light winds we anticipated. We spent most of the second day motoring or motorsailing. Things were calm enough that Shiroma was feeling well, everyone was able to relax, and I was able to spend some time working on the outboard. I removed the carburetor, drained the sea water from it and then totally disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled it. By doing it in steps, I was able to get it back together with no “extra” or lost parts. After reinstalling it, I was able to start and run the outboard for a few seconds, so that’s good news. The carb does leak now and the choke is stuck, but those problems should be pretty easy to fix once we have another spell of good weather.

The night before last, we finally got some good wind, but it was more or less on the nose, forcing us to sail off course and pound into confused seas. While it was a bit uncomfortable, at least we were able to make some progress with the engines off. We spent much of yesterday surrounded by squalls, but didn’t actually get too much rain. The wind moved from the north to the west and lightened until eventually we were barely making 2.5 knots with the sails slapping and banging. Eventually we gave in and started an engine again. We’re now surrounded by more squalls and getting a bit of rain. I think we’re all dreaming of sunny days as we slowly make our way north.

Having just come from New Zealand, we have a reasonably good stock of supplies, and Lauren, Ash, and Shiroma have been using it to cook up some really great meals. The other night Ash made a delicious shepherd’s pie and last night Lauren topped our homemade burrito shells with pasta sauce, mushroom, cheese, asparagus, pineapple, green olives, and chicken to make some delicious Italian-style pizzas in a skillet.

Pizza!!

Pizza!!

 

There hasn’t been much to see at sea aside from the Kermadecs, but we did have a good sighting the other day. Mahi mahi (aka Dorado, dolphin) are known to hang out around objects that are floating in the water. Once we had one check out the boat on a Pacific passage when we were drifting. We were all on deck when a good sized log floated by off to starboard. We didn’t have a line in the water, but I was about to open my mouth and say that it would be a good time to find a mahi mahi when one 2-3 feet long shot out of the water near the log and made an arc about 3 feet high in a jump to escape a predator below or the perceived threat of our boat passing nearby.

With all the cloudy weather of late, sunrises and sunsets haven’t been much to look at, but last night was an exception. The sky had slowly started to clear throughout the day, especially to the west, leaving a partly cloudy sky with a healthy scattering of cirrus and cumulus clouds in the direction of the sunset. As the sun neared the horizon, it became a glowing orange. The clouds near the horizon were intense shades of orange, and the many breaks among the clouds allowed the light to shine through and reflect off of clouds much higher in the sky so that even clouds that were almost overhead were glowing in almost transparent shades of bright pink, yellow, and orange. Very nice.

The photo almost does it justice

The photo almost does it justice