Great sailing again today. We cleared 210 miles over our forth 24 hour period. The swell is getting pretty large and will be for the next day or so. The GRIBs say it is 3.8 meters in this area. Pretty towering with a 10 second interval. Our heading keeps us from surfing too much but we hit 12 knots every now and then.

This afternoon I put out the fishing line for the first time on this leg. We were doing 9-10 knots and the lures with the bills on them just get all tangled up in their own line at that speed. I switched to this huge lure that our friends Pablo and Louise bought us, and before long, bang! The line ran like mad for 3 seconds and then silence. The YoZuri (my prized lure) was gone and the reel's line was so fouled up I couldn't sort it out. Nobu and Hideko worked on it for an hour or two and decided to table the project until tomorrow. I'm sure it was a big Wahoo (there is a small prize at stake for the first fish type; Hideko has Tuna, Nobu has Mahi Mahi and I have Wahoo).

Nobu's selection for the boom box are interesting. He chose Elvis and Crystal Method (!). Hideko selected The Beatles and Toy Matinee and I picked Aerosmith Rocks and Get Your Wings. It has been an eclectic tunes day.

We've been taking very good care of the rig out here. When you're island hopping and something breaks on the rig you just motor to the nearest port. When your nearest port is 1,000 miles away you need to look after your rig. We can probably motor between 1,000 and 1,500 miles depending on conditions, but we can certainly sail the whole way and a lot faster with better stability. The wind has been coming from behind the beam quite a bit today and may continue to move east. This is fine, down wind sailing is not as fast but very comfortable. The only problem is that if I let the main out to properly trim it the sail rubs on the swept back spreaders. Since I don't want any unnecessary chafe on this trip we are sacrificing perfect sail trim for ok sail trim and no chafe. The chart plotter eta for Fatu Hiva is the 21st but I think the 22nd or 23 is more reasonable (we're doing 10 knots right now and it assumes we will keep that up).

Nobu says: "Cruising the South Pacific with Elvis rules!"

Hideko says: "We were happy to see the 2000 nautical mile mark crossed!!"

1,999 nm to go...