Smoother Seas, Monday December 10th
10 December 2018 | Tasman Sea
Helen/Mark
I headed to our forward cabin for my 1st sleep at 8 pm. Slept a couple of hours and was awake. I finally told myself to sleep and I did. Mark woke me at midnight. Mark noticed a bunch of fishing vessels close by our path. He was able to make our way thru them without any changes in course. He also got to observe some fireworks on shore. At midnight on my 1st helm shift, I actually stayed at the helm as there were three fishing boats on both sides of the rhumb line. I could see that we were under a mile apart, but their lights were bright and it looked like I was going faster and overtaking them. So, I headed off the rhumb line to the starboard side. I do believe that two of the fishing vessels were heading in that same direction, so I headed back to the rhumb line and stayed there. All three ships moved away from my course. There were many fishing boats behind us as well, but they stayed behind us. Mark had turned on the one engine as the winds had died. No changes thru the end of my shift. I had been reading a book thru my shift. Mark woke up by 4 am and relieved me. I headed to bed and this time I slept well. Although, I woke up and was so very cold, despite a nice warm blanket over me. I had thought about getting another bigger blanket, but fell asleep before I could do that. Mark woke me around 8 am and it was time for my 2nd helm shift. It looked like our wind was shifting to the NW, which was not predicted at all. There was enough wind from behind for the jib sail, so I set the jib and our speed was 6-7 knots. I reduced the engine speed all the way to neutral, just to make sure the speed held and it did. So, I was able to turn off the engine and we sailed 5-8 knots thru the rest of my shift. I was able to put together a lovely veggie omelet for lunch by the time Mark woke up. No more sightings of ships during the day. Mark took a nap, but I stayed up and kept watch. Mark made popcorn and we started watching the Horatio Hornblower series, thanks to Peter. We had watched the shows many years ago. I find some of them too violent. Mark made us a pot of popcorn and I was half watching and attempting to finish reading the book, The Paris Seamstress, so thanks, Lauren. The wind decided to weaken and the seas were also much less. Mark started one engine around 6 pm. We had a light dinner as the sun was setting over the Smokey Cape. We have 177 nautical miles to go to our destination of Pitwater. Thanks for the phone calls, emails and messages received today. Despite being over 5 miles from shore, we were still getting some wifi out here on the water. Will post a few pictures on my night watch. We enjoyed some sunshine this morning with blue skies. It's been so overcast for so many days. Our salon temperature was over 80 degrees today It actually felt warmer this morning. I spent some time cleaning the salt water off our salon windows. Mark told me to wear my life vest, if I went out on deck while he slept, so that's what did. Today's sunset was not that colorful. Mark made a comment that the skies were kind of spooky. The formation of clouds can be nice and puffy, but also streaks and wisps and different shades too. We passed the Solitude islands, plus a few more, in-between us and the shoreline. Was not expecting the coast to be so mountainous. No signs of houses. We some one beautiful beach at the tip of Smokey Cape. We are more than half way to our destination. Would love to keep our speeds of 5-6 knots going for another couple of days.