The wind is a bit of a bitch indeed. Gust come by often enough that I have been keeping the same sail configuration (2 reefs and staysail) for a day but in between the gusts the lulls are long. The wind has been shifting a bit to the south in the last few hours so at least we manage to head, on average, south of east (between 85 and 105 True) but mostly at a snail's pace (about 4 kts average). The seas are still as shitty as before and Janneke has trouble keeping food down. And it looks like there is no escape from this until Friday when the High that has been slowly overtaking us to the South finally moves North ahead of us to brig us North-easterlies and then Northerlies. We have various GPSs on board keeping track of distance covered but I forgot to reset them in Opua when we left so I don't exactly know how long we've gone but it's about 1000NM in 10 days which is really not that good but hey it's so much fun......!
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How about your song writing? I have 8 lines on my song but no music yet. The other day I had a tune but no words; may the twain meet someday!

Tired of wallowing in lulls I rolled in the staysail and let out the jib partially furled: the boat likes this a lot more - you feel her power - but the ride is a little crazy: more powerful going through the waves which crash on deck occasionally, but the accelerations are larger. When under canvassed there is more movement actually but less acceleration if that makes sense.

pos S 38d27m W165d04m (in just a few miles we enter the next time zone
(GMT-10 and 5 hours diff with you EST)

Course About East at 6.5kts. Was that crazy that Peter [in Russell, New Zealand for Pacific Seafarers Network] had me from the AIS picked up by satellites: this means they can tell where we are pretty much 24/7 as long as the AIS is working