The weather system is still lingering around so we will wait one more day, and now will leave on Saturday. More time to slow down and enjoy our anchorage.

Well, the convergence zone moved in on us and our weather window collapsed. We are waiting for an improvement before heading through the pass. It looks like we will be leaving Friday morning. Propagation is poor right now. Hopefully it will improve with the weather. This little delay will be good as we can make some last minute preparations a bit more leisurely. We will be sailing with a Dutch boat called Happy Monster. We will be communicating back and forth via email. We still aren't sure we will make enough easting to make Canton, but we will give it a try for maybe a week. Hopefully we will get far enough east to counter the east winds and west setting current.

Well, we are officially checked out of the Marshall Islands and will begin our passage south. We will be posting now about every 24 hours depending on how propagation works out. Hopefully we will have an uneventful passage south to Fiji.

Well, we are wrapping up tasks and getting ready to leave the Marshalls. We are planning setting sail Tuesday or Wednesday. This passage to Fiji will be our most complicated to date because we will be sailing based on what the wind will allow. The prevailing wind is East to ENE above the equator, then shifting E to ESE south of the equator. We have to get most of our easting in above the equator. Just north of the equator at between latitude 02-04N there is a east setting counter current. The rest of the passage will be a west setting current that we will be fighting as we try to go east. If we can find the equatorial counter current, we will ride this as long as we can to take us east. We will be making a course line directly towards Canton Atoll in the Phoenix Island group (in the northern Kiribati). We will be tacking back and forth trying to reach Canton. We may not get that far, but it is a good line of reference so that we can get eastward. We will continue our passage towards Canton for about two weeks. If we get there, great, if not, at that time we will turn southward, hoping to keep our easting as much as possible towards Fiji. We do have a plan B tucked in for in case the wind won't allow us to get east. If this happens, we will fall off the wind, and sail to Vanuatu, and not go to Fiji at all. We will be checking into the Pacific Seafarer's net as well sending posts here on the blog. You can use Google Earth and it will show our progress. The passage will take about 27 days to complete. We would like to see Canton, so that will be a stop, and we may make stops at Wallis, Futuna, or Tuvalu....all depending upon how the weather works out. We will be traveling with the same plans as S/V Happy Monster from Holland. Hopefully we will both have an uneventful passage south.

That's right, no joke! It not only arrived looking beautiful, but it dropped right into place in about 15 minutes! We are so pleased with Seaward in that over the years they have made changes, but kept the dimensions and fitting sizes the same. It sure made this replacement project one of our easiest.....unlike other companies such as Garmin. With their constant changes in format and supposed upgrades then discontinuing older chart chips will cost us thousands We are still struggling with that. If we want charts we are stuck buying a new plotter, and to make it worse, the new plotter is incompatible with the charts we have now. We have come up with one solution for now and that is using Open CPN which is a PC based program that is amazing. Look no farther. It is available to download on line and it is free. It is one good answer to all the companies that charge huge amounts and then make up purchase the same stuff over and over again with their supposed upgrades. We are wrapping up a few boat projects today. We were wanting to leave this weekend, but the weather does not look good until Monday. Monday is a holiday here, so more than likely our earliest day to check out will be on Tuesday. To those folks that asked, the promised gear review is coming. I am so behind in writing projects right now...so hang in there!

One more plug for Seven Seas Cruising Association. I have articles published that magazine. It is truly a worthy membership because the articles are all produced by members who are out here cruising. The "Commodore's Bulletin" as it's called is available either through the mail or downloaded as a Word or PDF file. Their website is also full of great information including on-line workshops on a variety of topics.

The stove saga continues with an interesting, if not predictable twist. But first you may want to know that there is a serious flour shortage here. There is no flour left for sale. It is apparent that all of the stores have some serious empty spots on the shelves besides flour. the local restaurants are readjusting their menus. Don't expect to order pancakes. There is no bread for sale either. So, what does flour have to do with my stove other than baking projects once it arrives? Well, its a tale of two freighters. Majuro is served by two freighters, one from the east and one from the west. Sad but true, both freighters broke down. The one that our stove is supposedly on broke down in Guam and was delayed. Although it is now in route, it skipped some of the outer islands and should be here on Monday......or Tuesday. Since the order of containers is now mixed up, it will take longer to offload it. So, Hopefully the stove will arrive on Tuesday. I expect it is in a box next to the flour!

While we were waiting for the stove, we worked on our lighting. One of the little frustrations is that our dome lights put out just enough light to see, but not enough to read. The galley was especially dark. Cooking after dark included a flashlight to fish out utensils and dishes. We fantasized about nice lighting and even switching to LED lights. We tried a few LEDs that had the two-prong conversion that we experimented with. They were barely bright enough to read with, and under passage, would fall out. This is all just a memory now. With the help of our friend Luc on S/V Sloepmouche and his little sideline of selling LED lights. We were amazed when he showed us this new generation of LEDs from China. Not only are they brighter, but we could chose white, or the more natural "warm" off-white. We decided to upgrade the entire interior of Tender Spirit. In just a few days we made these changes: 1. All of our dome lights are now recessed directional spotlights. (Yes, I can read from one of these lights!) 2. All of our small reading lights are mini spotlights. 3. The head has 4 new strip lights. We placed a red strip and a white strip (actually produces natural color) side-by-side. Now with a 3 way switch we can choose white or red lighting. the strips are each 2' long. 4. Our favorite addition is two 15 foot RGB strips. these lights are run by a remote control system. They run the length of the salon on each side of the boat. One wraps around the nav. station, and the other around the galley and ends over our steps. These are multi- colored lights. With the remote, we can have the choice of 12 colors. The red is bright enough to do all of our galley magic at night under passage....without a flashlight. I'm rather fond of the blue and aqua blue....but the green and purple are attractive...too much fun with the remote! The lights can be set up to change color at various speeds..so Christmas will be colorful this year!! 5. We have an additional 15 foot RGB strip for the cockpit. Right now it is portable with a 12 volt plug. We would like to enclose the cockpit to better protect us from the sun and rain. The lights will then be mounted under the dodger/bimini. We will definitely recognize our boat coming home after dark in a crowded anchorage! The amazing part of this project is that not only are our lights brighter, but we are using a fraction of the power that we had been consuming. The warmer lights throughout the boat give a cozy feel, not the usual harsh white that is usually associated with LEDs. We are really going to appreciate the red lights while on passage this year. The only bad news is that now I can see the dust, and places where the varnish needs refreshing! Next will be to replace our exterior navigation lights. I have them picked out...just need to save for them!!!

The stove continues to be on "walk-about". The new "for sure this time" date is the 22nd. I was afraid to ask what month. This is just fine as we are completing some projects and not feeling rushed. We just returned from visiting Enemanet, a nearby motu. The corals are spectacular there and I really enjoyed some time underwater. Meanwhile, the weather changed....it hasn't rained in a week, so we have been busy catching up on some outdoor chores. I rebuilt the 5 cockpit winches. The old grease and grime sure gummed up the gears. It's amazing how tough they really are. They are working nice and smooth now!