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4/16/2006 2:00:00 PM
Less then 360 miles to Hiva Oa
Smack on track and just passed waypoints 1020

Day 18 of 25 - The SE trades have arrived

DAY 18 of 25 - We found the SE trades and talk about what they actually are and why they develop.

SAILING UPDATE We found the SE trades and have been in it now for 2 days ... no we didn't break a new record yesterday but we got our daily run above 150 again which puts as right now 360 miles outside Hiva Oa or in other words about 2 1/2 days before landfall. Depending on how consistent trades will be, that should be hopefully Tuesday evening.

Sailing has been pretty spectacular the last 2 days with us pointing straight at Hiva Oa at a beam reach or sometimes a broad reach depending on the exact wind direction which is still shifting around. At first, we flew our colorful gennaker but since the winds gotten as strong as 18 knots and squalls are in the area, we took the 'Gennie' down and are still making consistently over 6 knots with our small jib only and in case of a squall, we can just roll it up without having to get on the foredeck ... not the fastest way to go but a much more comfortable ride and it give us piece of mind at night.

Talking about the trades, here is the promised write-up from Beth Leonard about these famous winds:

"The low pressure in the doldrums created by the constant air circulation upward and outward to the poles pulls air in from the high pressure systems located at about 30 degrees  north and south. The rotation of the earth causes this air flow to bend as it crosses the region between the high and the doldrums, giving these winds an easterly component. This creates the fabled northeast and southeast trade winds found in the band from about 10 degrees to 30 degrees north and south. Wind direction is 80 percent constant in this area (yeah right!?), though the trades do blow more strongly in winter then in summer. ..."

BOAT UPDATE Sorry for the radio silence but we depend heavily on how good radio reception (it is actually called propagation for this type of radio) is to send and receive our emails and the day before yesterday, we had a hell of a time with that.

All in all, our boat is holding up fantastic ... knock on wood again ... we had to change our fuel filter today and lucky us because normally that always happens in the middle of the night ... but this time it was right before dinner. It seems we had a pretty bad patch of diesel we put into our port side tank and now the last 30 liters are quite dirty which gunks up the filters ... we will most likely NOT use that tank anymore for now, which isn't a big deal at the rate we are sailing right now.

FISHING UPDATE Nothing to report . I should have known better but this category was a lost cause on us ... we are just not enough into the whole fishing scene ... instead people have asked if we are seeing any marine life and to tell you the truth, beside the occasional bird flying around and obvious the flying fish which are abundant, we haven't seen much for quite a while ... probably the sea turtle right when we left Z town ... no dolphins, no whales nothing ... we did hear that sharks are always there when you go for a swim but even that we cannot substantiate with a personal observation to Niki's delight.

Have I said lately that the sea is really blue ... this seems to be a barometer of my mood ... the happier we are the 'bluer' the sea seems to be and the better the sunsets and sunrises are ... ;-)

FOOD PLAN OF THE DAY Breakfast - Egg and bacon with toasted bread Lunch - Salami and cheese sandwich Dinner - Raqulette (spelling!?) a la Lawur which is basically potatoes cooked and then sliced in the bottom of a pan with a bit of garlic in it and then all the left-over cheese put on top of it ... we are talking thick ... at least 1/2 inch of cheese and cooked until the cheese all melts and even gets a bit hard at the bottom ... a true low calorie meal ... :-)

HIGH OF THE DAY The high of these days is watching the mileage meter count down ... we have started to make plans for landfall ... we need to sail an average of 6knots over the next 60 hours to make it into Hiva Oa before dark on Tuesday ... a pretty big quota for us but doable if the winds cooperate. Ohana Kai in the meantime has taken an even bigger lead on us with over 90 miles, which puts them into Hiva Oa probably almost a day before us on Monday or a total of 2 days shorter then us for the total trip ... they have been making crazy progress while we have let the 'metal of the pedal' in trade of a more comfortable ride with a reef in the main to stop the flocking and just flying the smaller jib (big jib has a rip, gennaker is too much risk with the squalls around) ... that way both Niki and I sleep much better and that's worth a few hours of extra sailing to us. It seems Capaz and Long Tall Sally are right there with us a little bit to the West of us ... last night was pretty light so they might be ahead of us now though too.

LOW OF THE DAY The fact that the squalls are back ... what's up with that ... this isn't what Beth Leonard promised us ... she doesn't talk about squalls in the trade winds ... well nevertheless, the squalls are back and we had a pretty good downpour last night ... we even found a new leak right above Sebastian and Benjamin's bed, which we will need to attend to when we arrive. One of the email questions was how many squalls we had so far, what we do in a squall and what about lightening ... we have been fairly lucky and I would have to say that we skirted quite a few but really hit we only got by 4 or 5 squalls. In regards to what we do when they come, it depending on how much the wind picks up, we either roll up the jib all together or we just go a little bit closer to the wind to spill most of the wind out of the sail. If the winds are pretty strong, I might decide to go and hand steer the boat to avoid overstressing the autopilot. In regards to lightening, up to this point all we have seen is lightening in the distance and here a 'wood knock' is required again, because lightening isn't anything we want near our boat. There are devices and contraptions that are supposed to take a lightening that hits a boat and direct it safely through it but there is a never ending technical debate in the boating community if they really work. In summary, if we expect squalls at night, we at least put one reef into the main in advance, then we reduce sail when it really hits.

To end on a positive note rather then squalls, let me close this report by saying, we have really gotten into this by now ... yes Niki and I are really tired sometimes, but we haven't really gotten into each others hair, the kids are chipper as can be and it has been an incredible journey to this point ... let's keep our fingers crossed for 3 more safe days and we will be 'really' happy.

Happy voyaging,

Robert and crew

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