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Mischief - A little bit of Mischief Log 5



Day 12 11 March 2018 Sunday. Mother's day; a salty dousing; Sat phone problems; clocks go back presents opportunities; heading to NZ!; official members of triple digit club.

Happy Mother's Day to all Mum's out there!

Last night the wind was up and down like a yo-yo with dark clouds covering the moon when it did eventually make an appearance. The boat has been really rocking along both literally and figuratively under poled out genoa and one reef in the main - we seem to be averaging around 8 knots like this and surfing to 11 knots; really uncomfortable though. Dave reefed in the genoa around 0430 in a big gust but this seemed to unbalance the rig so we shook it out again at 0830. We are now back to rounding up sharply on larger waves the remedy to which is holding on tight!

I had a proper wash and shave early morning and appeared on deck prim and proper only to immediately take a personal rogue wave over my head, a perfect shot. Hopefully it is not going to be one of those days. Incidentally, where is the sun?? At least its not raining although I could now do with a little rain to wash the salt off, how ironic is that!

1200 Position 08 degs 35.9' S 120 degs 24' W No change wind speed and course, Noon to noon run 182 nm.

Dave reported a problem with the sat phone - it would not initialize, whatever that means, other than it wouldn't connect. This meant no email and therefore no weather so a potentially serious issue so he read the manual from cover to cover where naturally the particular problem was not mentioned, turned the thing off and on etc. all to no avail. He eventually resorted to taking the battery out and re-inserting it and hey presto it worked! So much for RTFM!

Today we are going to knock the clock back an hour around 5 pm to get nearer to Hiva Oa time, some UTC less 9.5 hours so we have to lose some 3.5 hours. Woke up at 0850 this morning and told Dave I had already knocked the clock so was going back to bed for the hour which Dave didn't rise to, but worth a try!

Trevor made a fish ragu for tea following which Dave shook a reef out of the main given the wind had dropped off significantly but it acted as a provocation and immediately started blowing again, plus it rained heavily into the bargain. On change of watch the wind dropped off and backed all the way round to NE so I had the boat on 235 degrees at one point heading towards New Zealand, some 30 degrees off course with the boat wanting to gybe as she rolled on the waves so needed constant attention. Luckily the waves dropped off later which cured the problem and the wind veered again so it turned out to be a quite pleasant shift in the end. Even the moon came out later on to grace us with its presence.

To top it all, at 0052 we cracked the 1,000 mile mark and we are now officially a member of the triple digit club with 999 nm to run! Hooray, crack open the coca cola.

It turned out to be a quiet night and lovely sunrise at 0715 for a change.



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