Miles traveled Day 11: 166
Miles traveled to date: 1,400
Miles to Hiva Oa: 1,748
Wow, 166 miles in one day. For us that’s astounding. If the seas weren’t so huge and it was a flatter ride it would be nice, but it’s great to be ticking off the miles so quickly. At night we turn the boat downwind a bit and put the waves behind us a little more to make a slower and calmer ride. This morning I turned us upwind to a beam reach because we had diverged from our course quite a bit and right now we’re taking the waves much more foreward of aft than is comfortable. But we should converge with our course late this afternoon and we’ll turn back down again.
Yesterday while we were still going deep downwind we got totally pooped in the cockpit. The wave that broke into the back of the cockpit was so big that it got the underside of the bimini wet. The bimini is high enough that I can stand up straight on the seats, so it’s 5’4″+ above the cockpit seats. Luckily the wave didn’t get into the inside of the boat, but it was quite a surprise for both of us. Buoyweather forecasts these seas (12′-20′) to last through tomorrow, but hopefully they’ll subside sooner.
Tomorrow afternoon we should hit the halfway mark distance-wise. But given our significant increase in boat speed compared to the first four days when we were drifting along, we should now be well past the halfway mark time-wise. I won’t look at the chart again, but I know that 1700 miles at 7 knots is 10 days. But I’m not looking!
Rob landed another Dorado last night just before dark. I was going to deep fry some of it tonite but it’s a little too bouncy for a hot pan of oil to be on the stove, even with the gimbals. It’ll just be pan fried fresh mahi for dinner again; oh what a pity.
Teresa
