12 Sept 2008 and 13 September 2006

0727Z (Local time)

Current position                         N31 45. 994

                                                W123 21. 76

Wind WNW                                     10.5KTS

Speed over Ground                        7.1 KTS

Time till first Waypoint:            11H 54M

Scott : Good morning everyone.  Today we are looking at an overcast day three of this second take although it is day five at sea overall.  Today is a very exciting day for Speedbird and her crew!  We are going to reach our first waypoint!  The funny thing is that once we reach this one we then have over 500 miles till we reach waypoint 2! I don’t even look at the plotter anymore, it seems like time stands still.  We are in good spirits and happy about the fact that we will be showering today.  Roger and I have opted to let the facial hair go so we are both looking pretty salty sea dog like.  The boat has a very awkward wobble today so every five minutes I find my right leg will fly up in an effort to stabilise. 

We had our first action yesterday and I don’t mean the 007 movie we watched I’m talking about a small bilge pump issue in the keel.  For some reason the automatic sensor is telling the pump to run non stop.  The stern gland is leaking at about one drip every minute so rather than taking the whole thing apart we decided to run the pump manually every so often.

On last nights watch time along with seeing a lot of darkness go by between the times of 8 and 11 PM, I had a call from Jack!  Jack is back in Sydney after a really smooth trip back home.  He was pleased to say that he will be joining us again in Honolulu if everything falls into place.  Look forward to seeing you Jack!

 

Roger: 1230 Local time and 42 NM to our first waypoint, some 400 NM from san Diego and our third day at sea.  At that rate approx. 10.5 days to Honolulu.  Tonight we thought we would celebrate the occasion with a sip of mount gay rum – that should be 630 PM local time tonight.  Seas are still slight with a westerly swell, breeze out of the same quarter and expected to go nor east as we dip down the latitude scale.   Since early this morning we have had some assistance from current, which has increased our speed from 6.8 to 7.2 knots, which purely from a sailors point of view is pretty good going.  Conserving fuel is the name of the game at this modest speed in case we meet with some foul weather later on.  A special call to my ever-tolerant wife, lots of love Maureen – and Mel look after grandma and make sure she has petrol in her car.  Love and best wishes to all – cheers.

--- NEW DAY ---

Blog entry Six – 13 September 2006

Roger: Hi everyone its 1130H local time but our watches are still on San Diego time and for the non-nautical amongst you we are following the sun so every fifty degrees of longitude west we go we have the confusion of altering our watches one hour.  It is too much of a hassle so we don’t bother anyway we have Greenwich time on board so we can refer to that if we experience any confusion.  UTC time zone time, daylight saving time, its all to confusing and there is our own time and that’s all that matters.  Conditions are much the same today with a West Nor-west swell 1.5 to 2M on the beam, so there is a bit of rocking and rolling.  I brought a mattress up from down below and I sleep on that in the saloon, Scott sleeps on the settee in the saloon - the most comfortable berth in the boat in these conditions. Brian the old sea dog he sleeps in the master cabin but I'm sure he cat naps on his feet.  Scott our executive officer is in charge of the entertainment and the computer but his choice of movie last night (Bad Boys 2) was too much for me so I retired to he wheel house.  Still he has a choice of over 300 movies to select from so I'm sure there will be some good ones amongst them.  From all of the foregoing you can guess all is well with us on our small capsule on this vast ocean with a mountain of food to eat our way through on our way down to Hawaii.

Cheers for now.

 

Brian:  As I have learned that this blog will now be reaching some interested eyes in Brasil I thought I had better contribute what I can, although with Scott’s descriptions of the journey and Roger’s sailing insights I’m not sure of what else to add.  With all of my cruising experience being coastal from Canada to Mexico; turning west and heading into a watery desert intrigued me.  One feels very alone out here days go by without seeing another boat and at that it would most likely be a cargo ship travelling very quickly on and then off your radar screen but it has been interesting hearing the stories of life in OZ and sailing exploits we have settled into a routine now which does help and Dulce should be happy to know that I am putting on some weight.  We look forward to and celebrate each waypoint and that being said we should arrive at our second big one tomorrow night, halfway to Honolulu! Anyways a big hello to Nick and Daniel from the middle of the pacific ocean you guys had better be doing your homework and helping your mom! And kisses to Dulce.  E abracos e beijos para todo mundo no Brasil que esta lendo este blog.

 

Scott:  Hi everyone, I just wanted to make a quick apology for the time that has passed since the last blog we inadvertently went from one satellite region to another and had some major problems getting a connection.  Thank you very much to Peter for saving the day and It is pretty amazing that the second we got connected again after two days the sky literally broke open into perfect blue after having been overcast up until now.  Missing everyone back home, wish you were all here! MWA