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American Spirit II - Day 194: Light Winds & Some Boats Catching Big Fish; Friday, July 18, 2014



No more Pacific Ocean anymore. We're in the Coral Sea.

Joel on watch from 12:00 AM to 3:00 AM. We dropped the low side tri-reacher pole at 1:45 AM and turned the engine on. Motor sailing. Jeanine covered the 3:00 AM - 6:00 AM watch. A little sea sick. But still stood her watch.

I got up at 6:00 AM. Wind 6 knots; boat speed 6.3-6.8 knots.

The sun rose above the low level clouds that always are on the horizon at 6:30 AM. Mostly blue sky today.

Saw another sail boat port bow 30 degrees 2-3 miles t 6:56 AM. At 7:23 AM I saw a 2nd sail boat forward and starboard, with a spinnaker up; and a couple minutes later I saw a third, starboard 4-5 miles away.

At 8;05 AM I talked with Russ on Nexus. They just dropped their spinnaker and were motoring up to Vivo, who still had theirs up to take some pictures. Our boat speed thru the water was 5.9, but we had a helping current so our speed over the land was 6.8-7.0.

At 8:40 AM 5 boats in sight now.

The 9:00 AM net was run by NDS Darwin.

At 9:30 AM we had breakfast. Scrambled eggs, Vienna sausage, an orange and French bread. A new loaf. Yummy. Jeanine had chilled pears and bead. Still a little woozy.

At 10:20 AM we turned the engine off and put the spinnaker up. Wind 6-8 knots. Boat speed 5-6 knots.

Our noon position was 17 degrees, 42 minutes South; 165 degrees, 33 minutes East. 146 nautical miles to our first waypoint at the northern end of New Caledonia.

At 2:50 PM I finished Without Remorse by Tom Clancy. Good book. Started Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Lucy from Folie a Deux turned 13 today. Marianne and Tommy from II Audeacious sung her Happy Birthday on the VHF radio.

Around 3:20 PM Vivo caught a 55 inch, 50 pound Mahi Mahi.

Sunset at 5:41. Clouds. No green flash.

During the 6:00 PM net Alpheratz announced that they'd caught a 60 pound Wahoo. I'm sure I misspelled that one. We lowered the spinnaker to the deck and bagged it and put it below in the V-Berth.

After typing the latest log I sent it via SSB to Darawank NSW, 1,080 nautical miles away at 7:25 PM. Within 2 minutes of completing the sending of the log and emails, the station disconnected me so I had to reconnect again to finish.

I napped from 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM, then stood watch. As I came up the companionway into the cockpit the Milky Way was breath taking. From one horizon to 25 degrees above the other. I stared upwards tonight to see how many shooting stars I could count. Saw three: 9:20 PM; 10:05 PM; and 10:10 PM. About this time I saw a red sailboat light 1/2 mile off starboard beam.

At 11:30 PM the wind was 8-9 knots; and our boat speed 6.7 knots. Almost a 1 knot helping current. 73 miles to our first waypoint.

The moon rose around 11:47 PM out of the east.

Brian Fox

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