June 12, 2011 Sunday

Traveled last 24 hours: 163 miles Miles from Bora Bora: 263 Miles Remaining to American Samoa: 837

Fish! Fish! Just before midnight, Steve pulled in a 10-12 pound tuna and then at 9:00 this morning (June 13), a beautiful 3 foot Mahi Mahi. Whew! 2 fish in 9 hours and different ones for variety. Now our freezer is full and we won't fish for the rest of the crossing. Big question: which do we have for dinner tonight? Our nights have been interesting. On our first night out we had a hitchhiker. It was a booby who sat on our bimini, within 3' of us, all night until he flew away at 6:30 am. He did not even leave when we took several photos with flash. He must have been exhausted. Unfortunately, he was not a good guest because he left lots of droppings as souvenirs of his visit. During day 2, winds were light enough to put up the gennaker (our large foresail) which made for a faster and smoother ride. At night we replaced it with the jib (our small foresail) for a safer but considerably slower sail. The seas calmed down to 8' with winds 14-18. Some clouds but no rain during the day. One small squall hit at 1:00 am, rinsing the boat off. We have seen a few flying fish, the two fish we caught, 4 birds and no other boats during these past 2 days. This is a gigantic ocean, well the biggest in the world, and it certainly feels that way, up front and personal as we are, just a speck out here. For our second 24 hour period, we made 133 miles with 837 miles to go. If we maintain this speed, we will make the 1100 mile crossing in 8.5 days. We need to speed up because we want to make it in 8.25 days which will have us arriving during the daylight hours rather than at night. Soon we will change our clocks to GMT-11 or minus one hour from Tahiti time to match the time zone for Samoa (-4 hours from California time).