Day 15 (24 hour day) wrapped up at noon with a meager 135 miles made good. It may have been a fair bit more over ground but we were 20 degrees off our mark jibing back and forth losing around a half knot of way in the VMG. The day was nice but with a nasty chop making it tough to walk around the boat and relax. The chop faded over the day though and by midnight we were sailing in very calm conditions. We actually ran wing and wing for several hours, making 6 knots of way with 8 knots of wind in the cockpit. As boat speed dropped to around 3 knots and the wind began to come from everywhere and nowhere the starboard aux cam up and we switched into trawler mode again.

We're running the motor at about 1,700 rpm which is peak torque. This hopefully provides optimal way per liter of fuel. We are doing 6.5 to 7 knots at present and computations show consumption of about 0.6 gallons per hour. We also need to avoid going any faster so as to arrive after sunrise.

Arrival? Oh yeah we are actually going somewhere. It will be strange to see land again. We are timing things for a 8AM arrival in the Bay of Virgins, Fatu Hiva, Marquesas, French Polynesia. This will make our crossing come to 15 days and some odd hours. We'll fly the Q flag for the day and stay aboard, making way for Nuka Hiva and inbound clearance the next morning. It is supposed to be calm for a few days so we'll see.

Nobu says: "Almost there"

Hideko says: "After studying French Cuisine I decided to start studying the language as well. My first phase is ou sont les toilettes?"

92 nm to Fatu Hiva