7th September

17 41.552 S

172 46.613 W



Weather; sunny, wind 2-10 knots, waves 1.5 metres



As we continue onwards nothing much has changed on the good ship lollypop, we are still having to motor sail to keep up an average speed of 5 knots. The wind is still playing hard to get and when it shows up it can't decide which direction to blow from so we are almost continuously having to gybe to catch it, my arms are sore from winching and I'm sure Gerry is more than a little fed up with having to swap the preventer from side to side and back again with each gybe. The sea swell is at least pleasant enough to be able to move around safely without bumping into every sharp corner or stubbing our toes on things that leap out at the last minute as you walk past them. Our fuel consumption is good to date, we are keeping the engine ticking over at low revs and only using what we absolutely have to, there will be enough to get us safely to Fiji unless we spring a massive leak in one of the fuel tanks Ð touching wood and crossing fingers, legs and eyes as I type it!

Just after posting yesterday's blog we had a text message from our Tahiti neighbour Ð you know, the one with rocks in his head, who is single handing to Brisbane but on a slightly different course to ourselves, his name of Sherard and his boat is called Free to Play. I am more than a little concerned for him after reading the text as he has gone through the 40 plus knots of wind with gusts up to 45 knots, had to strap down his solar panels and almost lost his Bimini during that period. The concern really kicked up a notch yesterday when he told us that his auto pilot has "given up the ghost" and he has at least 3 days of motoring ahead of him as the wind has now died away to nothing. Although we have all had auto pilot issues/ failures at some point and have had to hand steer I can't begin to fathom how he is going to cope doing it single handed, it was bad enough for us when we had 5 hours' worth of hand steering with 2 of us to share the steering. I'm very concerned as to
how he is going to manage to sleep/ rest, eat, go to the toilet and stay remotely alert so if you want to spare a few good vibes/ thoughts / prayers then please direct them at Sherard for the time being , he needs all the help from whatever source it might come. The worst thing for us is knowing that even if he was within shouting distance of our boat there is nothing practical that we could do to help him out, it just shows how vulnerable single handing makes you. Hopefully we will have another text today telling us how he's going. Gerry has texted him and suggested that he pulls into Fiji (not in his plan and hasn't got clearance but he has done the PCR test and is fully vaccinated from Tahiti ) so as it is an emergency situation it would seem to be an obvious choice to get the auto pilot sorted out and working properly, otherwise he is looking at a further 13 days plus at sea by our estimation of where he is currently until he reaches Australia. It makes us quite grateful
that our issues are minor in comparison even if they seem like the end of the world at the time they occur.

Anyway back to us, we are enjoying the sun and the peace and quiet, albeit with a background noise of engine and smell of exhaust fumes wafting through. Our food is lasting really well though I am a bit worried that the chocolate won't last until we arrive in Fiji, our fruit should just be at the tail end by then and I am finishing off the fresh vegetables and starting in on the frozen and canned stuff to start reducing that. As for fresh fish, well if we had to rely on our fishing ability we would starve, still not a single bite even though we have had the line in the water every day, thank goodness tuna comes in tins!

I have begun with rearranging stuff in cupboards, sorting what we are leaving and what will be making the trip to Tassie once we get to Australia. It's hard to believe how much we have accumulated in the space of 2 years, we are trying to be ruthless about what we are keeping but at the end of the day I'm sure there will be things that get put in the wrong grouping.

We have one sighting to report today, the coral is spawning! We first saw this phenomenon Ð a brownish sludge in the water, in Queensland when the reef spawns each year, it is accompanied by an indescribable smell there; well as we have motored today we noticed that there were small patches of the stuff to begin with and as we have continued there are greater amounts all around us. There is no obvious smell but that might be because we are being inundated with exhaust fumes, plus of course the ocean is huge and the dispersement area is enormous. We had hoped that the fish might be following the spawning but we aren't seeing any evidence of life apart from the coral spawn.

So in the 24 hours we have done 108 NM and run the engine for 18 hours. More exciting stuff tomorrow, watch this space.