S/V Samadhi V - Passage from Costa Rica to Hawaii, Day 17

Date: 16 May 2009 1615 UTC (0915 Samadhi Time)
Distance sailed in last 24 hours: 143 nm
Distance to Hilo, Hawaii: 2407 nm
Latitude: 13 34.990 N
Longitude: 113 53.034 W
COG: 255 M
SOG: 7.5 kts under sail
Wind: 12 kts gusting to 15 kts
Seas: 3 ft N swell, 2 ft wind waves
Weather: 100% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1008.1, rising
Sea Temperature: 83 F

The first half of of our day was defined by rain. Rain, rain and more rain fell from the sky in true tropical downpour fashion. The rain fell from closely spaced groups of squalls that brought lighter winds with them, so we would sometimes see the sun, if only for 10 minutes. By mid afternoon, the rain had mostly abated and the wind returned. We were happy to be sailing once more at higher, i.e. normal, speeds. As a bonus, all of the freshwater from the sky has left Samadhi squeaky clean on the outside.

Aside from the rain, it was an uneventful day. In the dreary, early part of the day, we took the opportunity to get some extra sleep. Sleep is a wonderful, delightful thing that you can truly appreciate when you haven't had enough! The boys took watch duty while we slept. Phillip is somewhat less worried about collisions at sea right now as we haven't seen another vessel in over 5 days. This doesn't mean that we stop maintaining a 24 hour watch; it just allows Phillip to be less paranoid.

Kelly cooked two fantastic meals, Thai green curry eggplant for lunch and pasta in fresh tomato vodka sauce for dinner (with Phillip's famous garlic bread). Kelly is a master at putting together disparate ingredients we have on hand into something remarkable.

Communication technology continues to astound us. The boys called their mother in Florida on the satellite phone an the call was seamlessly transferred to a cell phone to reach her while she was traveling. We exchanged emails with our friend Steve Dashew who offered some tips on maintaining our sanity in the windless periods. Steve and his wife Linda are aboard their yacht "Wind Horse" in Norway, headed to the Arctic Circle. It is truly amazing that we can exchange emails and telephone calls with people all over the world basically as if we were all in the same town ashore.

We sailed along around 5 kts most of the day and night. Our weather router has advised us that we are approaching stronger and very consistent winds in the next day or so. We are anxious to get away from the evening calms, as they do great harm to our progress. There have been several days where we sailed consistently fast, only to find the wind vanishing at night. If we can sail quickly during the day AND the night we will dramatically increase the number of miles covered each day, probably by well over a third. Now we just need to hope for an end to our 1+ kt adverse current.

Thankfully, last night helped us along with a fair breeze, and we're continuing well this morning as the breeze freshens. We'll keep our fingers crossed that we're finally out of the woods.