Shorts & Spinnaker Run!
16 March 2018 | Pacific Ocean on route to Hawaii
Helen/Mark
We had plenty of wind overnight. In fact, the swells were so big at times, we got pushed and pulled and lifted up and dropped. Thankfully, I slept thru the worst of the big seas. On my first watch, the radar kept showing a vessel or something on the water close to our port side. I could not see anything in the pitch dark, as there were few stars in the sky to light up the ocean at night. Early morning the sun once again rose and went behind clouds. However, that did not last very long. The sun was shining pretty much the whole day. Something we have not see in many days. At one point I could see a rainbow on both starboard and port sides. The skies looked like rain in the distance, but we did not get any. It must have dissipated before we got to that location. We set the spinnaker after breakfast and it's still flying now. I saw speeds over 8 and was worried we had too much wind. The big speeds did not last long. Also, the wind was from the starboard stern area, but kept changing to the starboard beam. We will wait until closer to sunset to bring it down and fly the jib overnight. The waves decreased over the day. Every so many waves was one that much bigger than the rest. This could be heard banging to our hulls and bridge deck. When you look out in any direction, the tops of the waves have white caps, so we must have plenty of wind. With the sun shining, the white caps are sparkling slivers of white. Had a nice hot lunch today. Then Mark started the water maker for a couple of hours. Our tank is almost full again. While that was going on, we watched another movie, sans popcorn. Forrest Gump. They did a wonderful job mixing in actual history. Mark is practicing with his tin whistle, out in the cockpit. He has limited music to play, but it sounds pretty good. It's a stunning day to be out on the Pacific Ocean. The sun is still shimmering on the waves in front of us. Spent most of my night watch shifts listening to Coast to Coast radio. They always have interesting guests. It really makes the time go by faster. Sleep seemed to be more deep last night. Although the boat motion is more than just rocking. I kind of felt like I was being tossed around and my body felt it this morning. We are currently sailing over top of 4722 meters of water. How incredible is that? We have another 584 nautical miles to go to Hilo, Hawaii. So, maybe another 5 days or more, if the wind is not steady enough. With the sun shine, the ocean is a deep blue color. There are cloud banks close to the horizon in all directions. Last night for the first time, we got to see the sun set, through a lot of clouds, but there was a red color mixed in. We were happy to have enough power from the sun's rays. No need to run the engine, which is wonderful. Mark finally traded his jeans for shorts. During the day the breeze didn't feel so cold. Our salon temperature reached 81 degrees today. From our downwind sailing, there was again some leakage of sea water into the bilge and engine compartment on the starboard side. Mark pumped out the water, so all is good.