June 16, 2011 Friday

Traveled last 24 hours: 167 miles Miles from Bora Bora: 927 Miles Remaining to American Samoa: 196* 14 19 971S, 167 15 869W *Adjusted + 15 mile for change of course With both engines roaring, we made great time in virtually windless conditions (5-6 knots). The past two days we have been averaging 7.25 to 7.5 knots per hour, making 174 to 181 miles per day using both diesel engines. Today there were few clouds with sunny blue skies and again light winds (4-5 knots). The high temperature was 90 degrees, but the cockpit was fairly cool in the afternoon where we sat on our comfy blue adjustable cushions and read. The waves have been almost flat, no more than 2 feet. It was so calm that we set a nice dinner table in the cockpit and had a steak dinner, glass wine goblet and all, while enjoying the sunset. At 9:00 pm, we turned off one engine to save fuel. Wishing one of us had majored in math rather than political science and law, we both calculated and recalculated our figures on how much fuel we will need to get to Pago Pago if we have no wind. If we have miscalculated, will our engine sputter, die and we may have a very slow sail into Pago Pago Bay? High waves are expected starting on the 18th which we are hoping to avoid. Our diesel fuel tank indicator has never been reliable, it reads ¼" below 4/4 (full) when we know it is full, and gives various readings when we're low. So we carefully log the engine and generator hours to estimate how much diesel we are burning, and then check our calculations against the amount of fuel it takes to fill up the tank. We went over our trip calculations again. Since we have been making better time than we had planned, and to insure a greater leeway for error, cutting back to one engine will save us 6 gallons which represents 10 hours of motoring on one engine. We believe that we will now get to Pago Pago well before dark on the 18th, with 10 gallons left. Additionally, tomorrow's projected increase in winds to 10-13 knots should speed us along with one engine quite well. The moonlit night continued to be calm, and the wind picked up just enough to put up the jib, which we kept up throughout the night, adjusting it as necessary as the wind direction changed. In this way we were able to maintain a 6.3 knots overnight.