Monday. Day 6 at sea. The forecast change in wind direction does not seem to have arrived yet. Then again, maybe it has. We are still steering by Wind Pilot, our course is351, a near direct course to the Navula Pass at Fiji. It will come, this change, but as long as we can keep going this close to our destination, the better.

The seas are huge. It is as if we were sailing up enormous hills and then sliding down the hill into deep valleys. They are spaced a little less close together, so today is much more comfortable than yesterday.

We have been productive today. My day started with a shave - yes, even at sea, I manage to shave every day. Had breakfast - I had the salmon, Elisabeth had a salad. Just kidding! I'm not going to bore you with that. But I will tell you that it was (barely) calm enough that we had real food for dinner. A proper veggie stir-fry with rice. The first real meal since we began this voyage from NZ.

What was productive? We made water and filled our tanks. I'll tell you about this machine sometime. It is one of our favorites. We also found a nice shiny machine screw on the galley sole (floor). A little snooping, and we discovered that it had fallen from our Italian cooker/stove/oven. So, with the three dimentional bouncing, we got to take our stove quite down to re-install the screw. Cleaned up a little bit around the house. A boat can get pretty much in disarray during a passage, when every movement is a project in itself. Retrieved updated weather information from various sources. Found "a noise" and silenced it. All good stuff.

In our Dear "Your Rock and Roll Argonauts"column, we often get asked about our wind generator and solar panels, and how do we deal with electricity? Well, we start with a big bank (720 amp-hours) of 12 volt house batteries.. It is from these batteries that we draw our electricity for every electrical device we have on board, both 12 volt, and by the way of an inverter, 110 devices as well. These batteries need to be charged on a continual basis. We do this with our wind generator and solar panels.

Once again, no noise comes from this charging. We originally had an American made wind generator called "Air-X". Although nice and small, high tech, it was not such a great performer. When ever the wind approached a level where Air-x would make good electricity, its circuit would stop the machine. An American safety feature. So, it was basically worthless. File under "Things That Don't wWork".

When we got to NZ, we took off the Air-x, and we replaced it with a German made "Super Wind". What a good investment. This is a wind generator to behold. Only slightly larger than Air-x, it just produces gobs of electricity. File this under "Things That Work"

We also have a pair of Siemen's 85 watt solar panels that also perform quite well. It is now day 6 of this voyage. We have been powering two GPS chart plotters, a computer, radios, navigational instruments, electric autopilot, nav lights, cabin lights water maker. The list goes on. Now, have a look: Our battery bank is still charged to 98.2%. No fuel for charging, no noise. We're pretty green.

We do admit to being efficient with our choice of appliances. All lights are LED. My coffee this morning was freshly ground by a 100 year old porcelain hand grinder. Whenever possible we have chosen non electric. Winding mechanical clocks, etc. But fear not, we are not Amish, as there is my guitar - a very electric National Resolectric., my amplifier is a 12 volt tiny Roland cube with big sound.. We're not camping, and we have a nice life.

If eventually there is no wind and the sky is grey, we can also charge our batteries with the alternator on the ships diesel engine. Fuel and noise.

Are you bored yet? Well just think of how bored I must be to subject you to all of this. Heh, heh.

Oh, by the way, most sailors, especially the ones that call themselves "cruisers", like to sail with the wind behind the beam, an often more comfortable point of sail. Elisabeth however is a rogue. She prefers the more positive feeling of upwind sailing. She wanted to relate that this morning she adjusted the Wind Pilot to put the wind ahead of our beam (upwind), and that she is more comfortable. She remains, a true Rock and Roll Argonaut.

This then, is Rod and Elisabeth "Your Rock and Roll Argonauts" thanking you for reading this, and now biding you good night.