And so the winds died.
12 August 2011 | West of Bora Bora
Bill Hudson
It's now Friday the 12th and the journey continues toward Suwarrow Atoll. It's been slow going for the last two days as the winds slow down. While we left Bora Bora in 15-18 knot winds, they have dropped to maybe 7 knots all out of th east. We've had the genoa and main up since we left and today switched over to the spinnaker as our only sail. We rolled in the genoa and then hoisted the spinnaker still in it's sock and then took down the main. It was so calm that we did it with Zephyr going down wind. That's not the norm by far. The usual is to head into the wind before you drop your main. With both the main and genoa down, I pulled on the line that raises the sock that encases the spinnaker and out she flew. The winds are still light so it doesn't stay flying all the time but she will at least keep us going in the 3 to 5 knot range. There are two SSB nets out here(8131 at 0800 Tahiti time and 6224 at 1630 Tahiti time) that most cruisers check into letting others that are out here know where they are at any given time. A safety thing. On any given net, a good 20 boat sign in--us included. At least someone out there knows where we are(or close enough) that should we suddenly disappear, someone has a reference point of where to start looking for us. During this mornings net, many of the boats that are enroute have started their engines to make better time. With the cost of diesel fuel approaching $8.00 per gallon out here, we have opted to sail as much as we can on this voyage. We do run the engine for about an hour each day to charge up our batteries. Since it is running anyway, we do engage the propeller so we do get something out of the diesel other than volts. Once we had checked into French Polynesia in the Marquesas, we only had so many days that we could stay(90) so we were forced to motor if our speed got to slow. Now being out on the ocean again with no restrictions on us, we can take our time. We had originally figured on a passage of 6 days since we normally do a good 130 miles each day. Not so now. It could take us an easy 8 or more to get there at the speed we are going. We're not even half way there yet. It's not like we will run out of food or water and we have plenty of books to read and movies to watch and music to play so we won't go bonkers. The forecast is for better winds in a few days, I guess we will see where we are at that time and make plans accordingly. As of this afternoon, we're at 15 03.078S 156 53.512W and slowly moving west northwest on our course.