Pacific Crossing Day 5 - 6th June 2020

Pacific Crossing Day 5 - 6th June 2020

Midday position local time (1800 UTC):
- 05 degrees, 00 minutes South
- 102 degrees, 33 minutes West
Sailing on port tack wind at 120 degrees apparent
Sea State: slight with occaisional white caps on top of nice rolling swell of 2.5m
Wind: 14 knots from South East
Speed over the ground: 7.5 knots
Course over the ground: 262 degrees

And then she takes off….. Askari has just hit her sweet spot - 14 knots of wind and she flies. We had planned to try and do a sail by Zouterik however when Askari gets enough wind we just zoom off and sadly we have overtaken our friends before we got far enough south. We still chat on the radio - actually Tjaart and Andrew have decided they want their own boy chat in the afternoon; apparently the mornings are all too girly!

Last night nothing broke and the calm conditions settled in, it turned out to be a wonderful night under a beautiful bright full moon, with gentle seas - Andrew even had a huge pod of dolphins bubbling all around the boat on his watch, but he didn't dare wake me! We managed a slow and steady 147 miles in 24 hours, but since this morning the wind has picked up and the fluffy trade-wind clouds are well and truly established and we are making a more westward course.

Today, we have done a nice clean around, we caught one small fish but it got away and I baked banana bread - the bananas are just about hanging in there. We are a bit over them and are starting to talk about when we might get to enjoy something else for breakfast - Weetbix or muesli would even be a treat. A half-way to Polynesia bacon butty is the top idea on the agenda. I have been making delicious lemongrass ginger tea with the leaves of the fresh lemongrass we bought in Isabela - that with banana bread this morning was perfect.

I think you can tell the mood is much happier today. The new preventer line is in fact much better and we have adjusted the mainsail to remove a squeak.

Right - this afternoon's plan is lounge in the cockpit and enjoy the view.

I hope your day is as good x x

Special Geeky Stat Report for those who care about numbers:
We left Galapagos on Monday bound for Queensland. A journey of more than 7000 miles which we expect to take 50 days. We have prepared supplies for 60 days at sea and have 20 days of additional reserve so we dont have to eat each other if the plan is too optimistic.

Ater 5 days this is how we have done
-Distance sailed 757 Nm or about 11% of the direct course to Brisbane
-Consumed 59L of diesel of 700L on board which is about 8.5%
-Water tanks are full
-Food going to plan with no waste
-One fish caught
-All boat systems operational

So far so good will update this at day 10

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