Sunday, August 2, 2009

Bad neighborhood

Last night shortly before midnight, we entered an area which feels like
a bad neighborhood. Bunch of rain showers roam around us, sometimes to
hit us with strong gusts of wind, sometimes over the 25 knots, so much
that I had to drop the main sail, to reduce the stress on the boat and
keep the Monitor happy. Sometimes, especially since this morning, they
pass us at great speed and rob us of whatever wind we had but leaving us
with the swell and the flapping sails. We keep fighting to maintain a
reasonable speed, adjusting the sails and the course, but I don't think
that comes noon tomorrow we will clock a record distance.
Today at noon, we have covered 158 miles over the ground (but it was a
25 hours day as we set the local time at TU-7) and we have closed on our
destination by 155. We have 2313 miles left for Fatu Hiva where we still
expect to arrive on August 18 around noon and to arrive in Papeete on
September 5.
So far, our total water consumption stands at 26.2 gallons, i.e. 3.2
gallons per day.
There are two things that surprise me in this Pacific ocean. The first
one is that we have not seen any sea life except for scores of flying
fishes (some land on deck) and a few sea birds. We saw three whales on
the morning of our departure, at some distance from us, but since then,
nothing.
The second is that I have not seen any piece of trash at all. On the
Atlantic, I used to see at least one piece of trash per watch, that is
almost every three hours. Here, nothing at all, the ocean is clean. I
know about the huge island of trash in the north Pacific, but here, so
far, it's very clean.

No comments: