Distance sailed in last 24 hours: 191 nm
Distance to Honokohau, Hawaii: 970 nm
Latitude: 16 50.794 N
Longitude: 140 13.470 W
COG: 278M
SOG: 7.7 kts under sail
Wind: 8 kts NE
Seas: 2 ft NE swell, 1 ft wind waves
Weather: 70% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1014.7, rising
Sea Temperature: 76 F
Smoother seas and slackening winds brought change to our sailing yesterday. Starting in the early morning, the wind waned and moved around behind Samadhi. Having the wind behind us cuts our speed significantly, especially when the wind is light. We waited for a couple of hours to see if conditions were going to change before hoisting the spinnaker.
Sailing under the spinnaker immediately brought our speed up, but not as high as we have been seeing recently. The wind continued to drop steadily throughout the day and into the afternoon. We managed to hold our average speed around 8 knots, but only barely. As the wind dropped, our lovely clear skies gave way to near complete high overcast. It cleared by the late afternoon, and we were left with lots of puffy little clouds reflecting the rays of the setting sun.
The wind was fickle throughout the night. We squeezed what we could from it when it would blow, then slowed to a crawl when it died down. Today dawned overcast with light wind, but as the sun has risen the clouds are reducing. Perhaps the wind will increase soon as well.
On Friday, Alexander and Kelly made shortbread cookies (with the Tartine recipe--Thanks Cort!). We ate a couple of them then, and while delicious, mostly they were still too warm and crumbly. Fast forward to yesterday--somehow, we managed to finish the entire rest of the batch between snack and lunch. The boys just couldn't get enough! For extra servings, they even made up cute improvised ditties praising Alexander and his shortbreads. Alexander has promised to make us another batch sometime soon, maybe this time without any assistance.
We received a couple of phone calls yesterday. It's always a pleasure to talk with folks shore. Nana, we hope you have a wonderful time back east at Juline & Greg's wedding. Please pass along our best wishes to the happy couple. We're sorry we won't be there to help celebrate the occasion.
One of the things we're really looking forward to about arriving in Hawaii is being back in the US again. We'll miss our adventures in Latin America, but being able to shop at a grocery store where we can find things like a produce section with lemons and Brussels sprouts and a familiar butcher counter with cuts of meat we recognize will be so nice! That's not even mentioning the fact that it's a nightmare to have many boat (yacht) parts fixed or replaced outside of the US, especially with shipping and customs being what they are in some countries. We're definitely going to have our hands full with projects for a little while to come!
No comments:
Post a Comment