16 Jun postscript
15 June 2009
It looks like we're decided on continuing on to Kushiro (Hokkaido), 4 days north of here. Dorothy and Justin will be able to fly to the other airport in Tokyo from Kushiro, then train to Narita for their flight out. Their flight is 23rd; we should arrive in Kushiro sometime 20th. Thank you to everyone for their research in helping us work this out.
for those of you trying to work out how fast (or slowly, actually) we can get from here to there:
at 5 knots speed, we cover 120 nautical miles in 24hrs
5.5 kts = 132 nm
6.0 kts = 144 nm
6.5 kts = 156 nm
7.0 kts = 168 nm
7.5 kts = 180 nm
except when we have current or sail-assisting, going faster costs more fuel. right now we're going into head-wind 12-13kt headwind (down from 17-18 earlier this morning) and lumpy, short period head seas of a meter or so. this makes the ride kind of like a not-so-smooth rocking horse. and our Speed Over Ground is currently 5.9 - 6.1 kts using about 3.25 gallons of diesel per hour; very different from yesterday when we were carried along by the Kuroshio current and doing 8.9 - 9.2 kts using only 2.5 gph.