Lat: 19 38.117 S
Lon: 178 56.617 W

Not long after writing about light winds, the wind started to pick up off of the starboard beam, and in no time we were sailing. With the wind came dense clouds and more rain. We did a bit of bashing to windward through the night as the winds built. We dropped the main and eventually had to reef the jib as well. Our crossing of the Tropic of Capricorn (23 degrees, 26 minutes South latitude) and formal entry back into the tropics was marked by rain, confused seas, and squally weather from a small but wet low.

The GRIB data had forecasted that we would start to enjoy more traditional tradewind sailing at about 22 degrees latitude, and yesterday morning the sun came up over mostly clear skies and a light SSE breeze was blowing from astern. After rigging the spinnaker sheets and then untangling the twisted sheets after the spinnaker was hoisted, we finally got the spinnaker set nicely for the first time in months and enjoyed an incredibly beautiful day of clear, sunny weather and downwind sailing. I was able to get several projects done, including finishing off the outboard recovery (I hope), and there was plenty of time for showers, drying out the boat, and lounging on deck in the gentle breeze. It wasn’t our fastest day, but we weren’t motoring and it was by far the most pleasant.

Always a beautiful sight

Lauren & Shiroma decided to try a new shower approach — holding onto the swim ladder while underway and dunking themselves in the ocean then climbing back onto the transom for lathering up. Lauren took her shower in about 2.5 knots of current and found it pretty strong. By time it was Shiroma’s turn we were doing about 3.5 knots and the force of the water rushing by the boat was too much for her to fully submerge and still be confident of being able to hold on and pull herself back on board, so she only got a partial dunking. I opted for a bucket on the transom. For some reason, we thought that we’d better buy tons of soap to take along before leaving the US. I can assure you that soap is readily available everywhere we’ve been, but we still have half a dozen bars or so of Zest. I’m not sure if it’s the brand or type of soap or just soap in general, but it won’t lather in salt water so we end up using shampoo as body wash for salt water bathing.

Oh yeah

I hate to ramble about sunset after doing it last blog and just spending a paragraph on showering, but it was really incredible last night. After the sun was completely below the horizon, you could look forward from the port side of the boat and see an orange glow near the horizon that faded into a beautiful dark blue and then into black as the brighter stars shone brightly overhead. The spinnaker was set nicely off the port bow to the right, with the moon just to the left a glowing a clear, bright white over a quarter of it’s surface and showing a pale white over the unlit three quarters. To the left of the moon and a bit lower in the sky, near where the sun had gone down, Venus was brilliant yellowish beacon against the darkening blue portion of the sky.

A brilliant night

This morning we had another wind change (I love it when it waits until morning instead of changing at 3 am). This time the wind was stronger and on the beam, so Ash and I dropped the spinnaker and set the main and jib. The non-sailors can skip this next part, but it ended up being a pretty good sequence, much better than our current level of practice would suggest. We first raised the jib with the spinnaker still up, blanketing it a bit to reduce the amount of wind it was getting while still sailing on the jib, then eased the leeward sheet, pulled the sock down, and lowered the whole thing into the leeward trampoline without a single hitch, which is not something that can be said for every spinnaker adventure. We used another trick to raise the main and avoid having to turn the engine on and motor into the wind. By sheeting the jib in all the way and easing the main out all the way to the edge of the traveller, we were able to sail close-hauled on the jib while the main, pointed directly into the wind, luffed and raised easily. We then fell off, and set the sails for a course10-12 miles east of the Great Astrolabe Reef. We’d managed to change sails without starting the engine or disturbing the autopilot — not much of an accomplishment for the real salty types, but good for us for our second morning back in the trades.

We’re now less than 100nm from Suva and plan to be hailing port control to enter the harbor at dawn. With any luck, we’ll be able to finish clearance tomorrow morning and enjoy the long anticipated landfall by afternoon.