Days 28, 29, 30 and 31 of Pacific Crossing
27 May 2012 | 06 24.07'S:137 19.37'W
Day 28: 97nms, Day 29: 100nms, Day 30: 120nms, Day 31: 120nms. Miles to go: 226!!!!!
Day 28: When the sun rose, I counted 4 more flying fish on the boat. This makes our total at 20. One of those flying fish, flew right into the cockpit and landed by my feet. I didn't see him fly in, but I smelled him and then heard "flip, flip, flip." I immediately tried to pick him up, but every time I touched him, he'd "flip, flip, flip". Bucket in hand, I finally got him out of the cockpit and pitched him overboard. He left behind lots of blue scales to clean up. Onto sailing, we had good winds all day and night long. We both had our share of rain squalls also.
Day 29: At 5:30am, when the sun had light up the sky, we were again surrounded by storms. Tom was asleep and I was on watch. As a feeder band to a storm went over us, it brought some massive wind. Within just a few minutes, the winds built strongly to 50+ knots!!!! I immediately woke Tom and he took the helm. Since we have never had Gimpy Limpy Tanga in such strong winds and we don't know her threshold nor do we want to find out, we decided to heave to and ride out the wind storm. We sat in the cockpit, with our life jackets on, safety harnesses on, while watching the swells roll under Tanga. Around 10:30am, the winds died down to a comfortable 15+ knots, and we moved along again. We had wonderful following seas and good solid winds all night long. There were many squalls in the area, but we didn't get hit by any rain.
Day 30: We had left over winds from the previous day, all day long with those wonderful following seas. We found one squid on our solar panel which brings the squid count to 2. There were very few squall looking clouds at night, otherwise, it was a very clear star covered night.
Day 31: We had lighter winds today but still had those wonderful following seas, and made 4-5knots all day. The winds picked up in the evening and lasted throughout the night. Along with the winds, came some choppy and steep swells. Some of the swells would push us one way or other, so during our night watches, we were constantly making steering corrections. Very clear star covered night.
On to some very exciting news....did you see the "miles to go".....226!!!! WOW!!! We are both very excited and can't believe that we are almost there. No land in sight yet, but soon very very soon. We both want to be the person to say "LAND HO". We are estimating that we will arrive in Baie de Taiohae, on the island of Nuka Hiva, on Tuesday or Wednesday. WOOHOO!!!
Here's an interesting fact, I read in one of our cruising guides. The island groups of the French Polynesia are the Society Islands, the Tuamotu Archipelago, the Marquesas Islands and the Austral Islands. The four island groups consist of 109 islands spread over an ocean area of 1.5 million square miles. BIG.
Posted via satellite phone.
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