Author: mtashby

Current Position: 18 24.085’S 160 00.810’W; Local Timezone: UTC-10; SOG: 5.5 kt COG: 262; TWS: 16 kt; TWD: 135; Distance to Waypoint (Tonga, 254): 793; Total Miles Sailed: 4884 nm;
Comments: At the end of the day the storms keep coming, one after another. They are not really squalls, just rain storms, but the changes in wind direction and speed make it difficult to trim the sails to make steady progress. The seas are also becoming more angry, as expected, and the rolling and pitching are not only uncomfortable, it affects the efficiency of sailing. The prediction is it is going to get much worse as the week progresses. I ran the engine at the end of the day yesterday and topped off the house battery bank in about 20m. The sea became more angry at night. Waves were hitting the port stern quarter and spinning the boat southward. The wind vane would recover, but it would take time. The result was a more southerly course than I intended, straight for the Aitutaki atoll, some 80 nm away at 21:30. I tweaked the wind vane, but it was hard to find a sweet spot in the 25 kt wind. I set 1h sleep intervals fully expecting the boat to accidentally jibe if the wind decreased. However, the wind kept up most of the night and the boat ran true. I made almost exactly the same distance towards the waypoint last night as I did the night before (905-838=67 nm). The difference is I did it with half the sail area. This was achieved because of the higher wind velocity. In general, until the very end, the wind speed is expected to increase as the week progresses. On that note, the GRIB is 20h old. I downloaded a new weather map and plotted a course. There were no major changes from yesterday. It is 6:20 and I am waiting for it to be light enough to learn if today is going to be a repeat of yesterday with squalls. It is partly cloudy, but unlike yesterday the clouds are small and non-threatening. The sea is not as angry. I am averaging 5 kt with half the Yankee and two reefs, so I believe I will leave the sail configuration the way it is for now. I am making good progress towards the waypoint. I thought about fishing … my fresh stores are dwindling, but the truth is it was hard enough to make tea this morning and the idea of handling a pan of hot oil to cook is not appealing. At 7:30, the wind fell off a bit 12-15 kt from 120, so I unfurled most of the Yankee. This increased the speed from 4.8 to 5.4. I am leaving the two reefs in the main for now. Since there is more foresail, the boat wants to run when there is a gust. It could be a decent day for solar, which is good because I left the fridge on all night. Sine it only draws energy when the compressor is on, I am experimenting to see if leaving it on at night might actually result in drawing less energy during the day (because the compressor does not have to work as hard to cool the fridge back down). I have studied the weather forecast. It looks like I can expect the present wind conditions until early Monday morning, when the wind will increase from 15 to 20 (meaning gusts will increase from 20 to 25). I believe it is safe to shake out the second reef until tomorrow evening, when I should go back to half a Yankee and a double reef). After unfurling the last 10% of the Yankee, removing the reef, trimming the sails, and balancing the wind vane, I gained perhaps half a kt to 5.5 in 14 kt wind. The batteries bottomed out at 77% before the solar helped them break even about 9:00. By 9:30, there was a significant excess of amperage. However, I am sailing almost due E and am now at a significantly low latitude that the sun is N, and sails shade the panels by midday. So I really only have 2h of direct sunlight to charge.i doubt the batteries will be charged by the end of the day, but I am going to continue the experiment, leave the fridge on, and try to minimize other uses of energy. It does not help that it is getting more cloudy as the day progresses. A cargo ship appeared on the AIS about 30 nm away, but it is anchored at Aitutaki, were it has been the past few days. It looks like storm clouds are building behind me, but upwind and down course look almost completely clear of clouds. The sun is almost over the cloud cover to the E, so maybe I will get some decent solar energy after all. I passed Aitutaki at 13:00, 25 nm to my S. No more land until Niue, 575 nm away. By 14:00, it was heavily overcast. While nothing specific looked threatening, there was definitely a chance of storms. Very little solar energy was being produced. Winds were blowing steady at 15 and gusting to 20. My plan is to leave the sails as they are for the rest of the daylight hours, but reduce sail overnight. There are now a whole string of boats behind me, basically on the same course from Tahiti. I count 12 at the same latitude stretched back 300 nm, the range of AIS on PW. It started to sprinkle and the wind picked up to 20 at 15:30. While it does not look threatening, after this report I am going to reduce the foresail by 50%. I have made 905-793‎ = 112 nm on and 4884-4766= 123 nm total in the last 24 h. Note as predicted, the wind is veering more southerly.

Current Position: 18 16.620’S 158 02.285’W; Local Timezone: UTC-10; SOG: 5.7 kt COG: 268; TWS: 20 kt; TWD: 120; Distance to Waypoint (Tonga, 253): 905; Total Miles Sailed: 4766 nm;
Comments: I did not sleep as soundly last night, probably because of all the sleep I have had the past few days. I went to the cockpit several times. It seemed like a cloudless night, no moon, and the stars were spectacular. I used the wind vane all night in moderate 15 kt winds and made steady progress toward the waypoint at about 5 kt. All in all, a very pleasant night of sailing. I was awaken at 4:30. As it had the previous few mornings, the wind had veered to 120, causing the AWS to increase to 20 kt, driving the boat over 6 kt. The change in wind direction does not change the course of the boat, even though it is being guided by the wind vane, because there is more weather helm that requires oversteering. The effects cancel one another and the boat maintained a course exactly towards the waypoint. As I lay in my berth, I can see out the companionway at a swath of sky, framed by the boat and the bimini. There is a bright object in the night sky, Saturn, and it is bobbing around as the boat surfs down the swells, seemingly moving randomly, but always within the frame that is constrained by the wind vane. It is a remarkable device. I fell asleep for one last nap before sunrise. I didn’t even set an alarm. There isn’t another vessel within 100 nm of me. Sunrise is at 6:55. I got up an hour earlier to make tea and watch it. The cockpit is damp. Must have taken some waves over the cowling last night. It’s 6:00, 14h since my last check-in and 952.9 nm from the waypoint. Less than a 1000 nm now, so I have a decimal point. Watching the decimal point ticking down never get old. I’ve made 71 nm on overnight, averaging 5.1 kt. The wind is about 17 kt, but sometimes gusting to 23 from 115 degrees. I’ve been heading in the same direction with the same sail configuration (full Yankee and one reef in main) for almost three days, but that will change next week when the wind first veers to the S and then backs to the N. There will be a lot of sail trimming then. PredictWind has begun using the boat’s polars. I had set this up months ago, but apparently had a parameter wrong and the data were not being uploaded by the DataHub. Now that the polars are being used, I need to change the artificial parameters I have been using to correct the predictions (90% upwind, 80% downwind, and 80% at night) because I am traveling faster than predicted. There will still need to be an efficiency correction, because for example the wind vane does not steer in a straight line, but I don’t know what it is, so I have set the three parameters to 100% and will measure the efficiency over the next couple of days. It is 6:30 and bright enough that I can see rain falling behind me in the sunrise. The rain is falling vertically, so the storms do not appear to be threatening. I am thinking now the wet cockpit was due to rain, not breaking waves. Now that the wind vane is working again, I don’t feel as anxious about gusts. The TillerPilot struggled but the wind vane generally does not. I downloaded a new GRIB. The weather still looks nasty the second half of next week, but perhaps not quite as bad as was forecasted earlier. At sunrise, the wind gusted to 25 kn as the storm passed N of me. This may be the last day for the bananas. There are a dozen left. This is about the time some of the food goes bad. The eight loaf of day-old bread I bought nearly a week ago has started to go moldy. The oven-roasted chicken I bought Saturday and cut up does not smell right. I think it was undercooked. The lentil dish I cooked Sunday seems to be fermenting. This is the second time I have made something like it, and it does not seem to last more than five days. Next time I will make a half batch. Don’t want to take a chance, so I am getting rid of all of it. By the middle of the week it will be impossible to cook. I am going to try to use up the fresh stuff by the end of the weekend, then make a bean dish early in the week to last a couple of days. I also have eggs. Hard boiling six of them today. That leaves about a dozen. 7:45 and there are dark clouds windward. I turned on the Radar and there is a small squall 6 nm away. I expect it to hit me. However, the CAPE is relatively low, so I am not expecting it to be high-energy. It is not going to be a good day to produce solar energy. I have shut down everything but the nav instruments until I get some sunshine, perhaps after this storm passes. 25 kt wind and fairly heavy rain hit at 8:05. The boat is doing 7-7.5 kt and handling the storm well. A beautiful rainbow developed on the port side ahead of the storm. I can see a long, almost continuous series of rainstorms windward. I suspect there will be at least several hours of this. The storm passed by 8:20, but the one behind it looked more energetic. I furled in half the Yankee and put a second reef in the main. This slowed the boat to 4.5 kt in 25 kt wind. The leading edge of the storm will pass north of me, but I still expect most of it to hit me. It looks nasty. The leading edge is curled. It is a squall and is blocking out the sun completely. I lost half the bananas in the last storm. I grab the remains and toss the stock overboard before the next one. Because the storm is sideswiping me, the wind built gradually from 15 to 25. The boat is doing 6.5 kt with half the sail area I had up earlier. I can see essentially continuous storms lined up behind this one. The storm reaches me at 9:10 and it starts raining. The wind vane is doing a good job. Gusts in the high 20’s. It was a good call to reduce sail. By 9:30, the storm had most passed. There was light to my stern, but windward was still blocked out by rainfall. I decided to sail under reduced sail until it is clear all the storms have passed. The wind veered to 135 and dropped to 10 kt after the storm passed. I couldn’t tell if it was a front and a longer term change. A few minutes later my thoughts were confirmed when the wind backed to 95 and increased to 26 kt. I was in the wake of the storm. Since the wind vane was useless, I tried to switch on the TillerPilot. When I turned on the breaker, it did not come on. I confirmed power at the breaker and at the female plug. The connectors looked corroded again. On my punch list for Tonga was wiring a power only cable that I could connect both TillerPilots to, because the backup has a different style plug and because I no longer am using the NEMA cables. The idea of trying to do that while at sea was not appealing. First, I wanted to confirm that the plug connection was the issue, so I tried to clean up the plug and reconnect it. That did not work. Either the plug is shot or the TillerPilot is dead. I can see something failing in the TillerPilot, but it seems less likely that none of the lights would come on, and also I have had problems with the plug in the past. It seems my choices are to use the existing plug, cut the wires to the original TillerPilot and make an adapter out of the plug so I can use either TillerPilot or to simply put in a new power cable through a through-deck fitting. Since the cable on the original TillerPilot is useless, either because the plug is bad or the TillerPilot is fried, the easiest thing to do is cut the cable and see if I have power at the cable. If I do, I can make a simple adapter to use either TillerPilot. If the plug is no good, I need to run a new cable anyways. In the longer term, once I am at anchored, I can replace the plug altogether with a new through-deck fitting and waterproof connector, but for now, I can rig up something temporary. I cut the cable on the original TillerPilot and confirmed with a meter that the connector was making contact. Then I spiced the cable and confirmed the original TillerPilot is dead. Then I cut off the incompatible plug from the backup TIllerPilot, spliced in a waterproof plug, and confirmed the back-up works. I then used heat shrink tubing to seal the temporary plug. I now have a TillerPilot, but I do not intend to use it unless absolutely necessary. When I have an opportunity, I will acquire another backup. Between the weather and technical problems, it’s been a long day. Now, back to sailing. The wind has veered again to 125, making it easier to steer towards the waypoint. I’m doing over 5 kt in 19 kt wind with half the Yankee and a double-reefed main. I am still surrounded by clouds that could produce rain, but they are not threatening. Nonetheless, it’s been a long day and there is the potential for more weather, so I am going to leave the sails shorted. Furthermore, I am going to want to be conservative tonight. I ran the engine for awhile earlier, in part because I need to use the inverter for the heat gun, but also to deal with the a day when it was not possible to produce much solar, so the batteries are in pretty good shape, 97% charged and I am producing some solar under partly cloudy skies. And … just as I wrote that it started to rain. A small storm snuck up behind me. Looks mellow … and I’m not worried as I am running little sail. Funny thing is I just broke out the solar shower to get cleaned up. Instead, I put my harness in and went in deck to shower. Aitutaki is about 100 nm away. I should pass N of it tomorrow unless the winds drive me further S in the meantime. I have made 119 nm on and 130 nm total (average 5.4 kt) during the past 24h.

Current Position: 18 03.930’S 155 58.850’W; Local Timezone: UTC-10; SOG: 5.2 kt COG: 245; TWS: 16 kt; TWD: 109; Distance to Waypoint (Tonga, 252): 1024; Total Miles Sailed: 4635 nm;
Comments: The wing continued to veer last evening to the point that the boat was practically on a beam reach to the waypoint. However, I did not change course because I expected the wind to back after dusk, and I didn’t want to have to get up to trim the sails and change course. Instead, I left the course at about 240 (waypoint at 251) and picked up a kt or so of speed. Instead did one last check of potential hazards in my path. There are no vessels and the next body of land (the tiny atoll Aitutaki) is three days away. I went to sleep at 19:20 and was awaken less than an hour later by the motion of the boat, which was headed due south, apparently knocked off course by a wave. At 21:45, it happened again. 15m later it happened a third time. The problem was the wind had picked up to 20 kt, veered to 130, and big waves were overwhelming the TillerPilot. I set up the wind vane. While I was awake waiting to see it it held course, I downloaded a new GRIB. There is some serious nastiness forecasted in one week. If the forecast holds, I should avoid going any further S than necessary. While waiting, I could feel the periodic waves that were forcing the boat off course, but the wind vane in true form corrected. It really performs best under these conditions. It might take a minute or two, but it can recover from a 45 degree misdirection. I waited 30m and the boat seemed to be holding course at 7 kt, so I set an alarm for 30m and went back to sleep. The wind vane did well overnight. I woke up a few times and made minor adjustments. Since the check-in yesterday, I’ve made 76 nm on. The actual distance travelled was 87 nm, an average of 6.2 kt. The bananas were starting to go rogue, so I moved them to the cockpit. The wind is lighter this morning (TWS 15) and has backed as usual (105), so the boat has slowed to 4.5-5 kt when headed for the waypoint (252). The swell is light as well, making for a smooth ride at sunrise. The skies are mostly clear and without threats. It seems I have slept off the repository infection. I’m going to nap today to make sure it stays away. I have been recording my progress at 10:00 each morning. In the last 24h, I have travelled 4610-4481‎ = 129 nm (5.4 kt average) and made 1177-1054‎ = 123 nm on. The day was uneventful. The boat ran about 5.5 kt all day guided by the wind vane mostly towards the waypoint. The seas were relatively calm and the skies relatively clear. It was a near perfect day for sailing. I mostly rested below deck. Weather forecasts through the weekend look pretty much like today. However, the end of this passage looks complicated towards the end of next week with severe rolling and slamming of the boat. I will work on securing everything below deck before that happens. At 15:30 I shut off everything except the navigational instruments in an effort to charge the last couple of percent of the battery bank, but it does not look promising as the sun is already dipping below the clouds on the horizon and the solar panels are shaded by the sails on this port tack. I have made 1150-1024‎ = 126nm towards the waypoint in the last 24 h and I have travelled 4635-4502‎ = 133 total nm (5.5 kt average). am entering an area of general thunderstorm watch for through the end of the day tomorrow. I notice there is a thicker cloud cover ahead (relative to behind me), but nothing looks threatening.

Current Position: 17 38.660’S 153. 47.818’W; Local Timezone: UTC-10; SOG: 5.5 kt COG: 242; TWS: 15 kt; TWD: 115; Distance to Waypoint (Tonga, 251): 1150; Total Miles Sailed: 4502 nm;
Comments: Sunset was at 17:37. I ran the engine at the end of the day for about 20m to cool down the fridge before sitting it off for the night because I had shut almost everything down to try to charge the batteries with solar energy. I ended up getting the house battery bank charged 98%. At the end of the day, the sea state is much calmer than it was yesterday and with 17 kt of wind I am probably averaging 5.5 kt within 20 degrees of the waypoint with half the Yankee and one reef in the main. There does not appear to be any threatening weather and I don’t have any obstacles (islands) in my path. I am looking forward to some sleep. Although there are no ships on my path at present, these are shipping lanes, so I will set alarms at 1h intervals. I went to sleep at 18:00 and woke up at 5:00. I was interrupted hourly to check the AIS, but no vessels were within range all night. I definitely have a respiratory infection. I feel it in my right lung, there is sneezing and I coughed once, some drainage, a my throat is a little sore. At this point it seems to be a mild cold, almost certainly a virus. I will stave off anything worse by drinking hot liquids and trying to sleep. Sunrise will be blocked by clouds on the horizon, but it should be about 6:30. It is 6:10 now. TWS is 18 kt from almost due E. The boat was moving 5.5-6 kt with half the Yankee and one reef in the main. I went to the cockpit a couple of time during the night and I suspect these were the wind conditions most of the night. It’s been 14h since my check-in last night, and I have travelled 4460-4389=71 nm, an average of 71/14=5.1 kt overnight. When it is light enough I can see weather that could be squalls, one probably behind me, but upwind it looks fine. With the sunrise, the TWD has changed to 100, allowing a course almost directly towards the waypoint. The backing of the wind at sunrise usually does not last. I download a new weather forecast. All six models predict the same course, just S of the waypoint, the direction I am going. The sun peeked over the clouds at 6:47. Looks like another so-so day for solar. To protect the watermaker, I really need to try to make at least a little water today. This is the first time I feel I’m in blue water. I have had sight of land most of the past two days. I forgot how awesome the view is without horizons. After herbal tea with honey and three small bananas (definitely on sale), I went back to bed. I got up and took a photo of the instruments at 10:00 (211 nm on in the 48h since leaving Tahiti), then went back to bed. The GRIB was 18h, so I downloaded a new map. There were no significant changes. There is a cargo ship 35 nm behind me, but we appear to be on different courses. I went back to sleep. A rogue wave knocked me off course at 11:20, which was strange because the TillerPilot had done fine for almost 24h in much rougher seas. I put the boat back on course and went back to bed after confirming the cargo ship would pass 20 nm S of me in an hour. I noticed the past couple of days that the swells increase early in the day and decrease in the afternoon. Midafternoon, the wind veered another 10 degrees to 110, allowing the boat to maintain 5 kt even though the wind speed fell from 20 to 14 kt. The wind direction also made it easier to maintain a course close to the waypoint. I unfurled 90% of the Yankee (and left one reef in the main) to make 5.5 kt. It was overcast late afternoon, making it difficult to top off the house battery bank. I turned off the fridge at 15:00. I’ve probably gotten 15h of sleep in the last 24h and feel much better for it. My throat is no longer sore. Another good night’s sleep and I may have the cold behind me. I spent some time planning my route this afternoon. I am going to skip Fiji and head straight to Vanuatu after Tonga. I suspect Fiji is a lot like Tahiti … commercialize. It will take a take 10d to get there. Vanuatu is the last stop in the South Pacific before the Torres Strait, which would be a bit more than two weeks. If I spend two weeks in Tonga and a week in Vanuatu, I will be in the Torres Strait by the end of July. A month across the Torres Strait to Christmas Island would put me in a sweet spot between the cyclones in the north and south of the Indian Ocean.i turned on the engine at 15:30, not just to run the fridge a bit more and top off the batteries, but to run the watermaker, which has not been used in more than two weeks. I did not run it long enough to make desalinated water, but long enough to flush out the system to keep growth from occurring. I ended up only running the engine 20m to accomplish these tasks.

Current Position: 17 01.799’S 151 55.642’W; Local Timezone: UTC-10; SOG: 5.5 kt COG: 229; TWS: 18 kt; TWD: 92; Distance to Waypoint (Tonga, 250): 1260; Total Miles Sailed: 4389 nm;
Comments: I closed my eyes for about an hour. When I got up at 17:30, it was sunset. Compared to earlier in the day, the swell was not as big. I was 30 nm, perhaps 5h from having to jibe to avoid the Bora-bora island group. Jibing requires me to go on deck to move the preventer, generally something I try to avoid in the dark, especially in such rough seas. I considered doing it early, before it became completely dark, but that would have placed me the same distance on a course towards the small island W of Moorea. At 17:45 I was buzzed by a small private jet. It should have not been that low, even if it had taken off from Tahiti. Probably a joy ride. Just before it got completely dark, I scanned the horizon. There were rain showers like the two that had hit me earlier, but they did not look threatening enough to reduce sail. It seemed likely I’d only be dozing until it became time to change course. The wind veered to due east after dark. At 19:00, not long after the second cargo ship passed, a third appeared 20 nm behind me, on the same course as the other two. Since the wind veered, the wind vane struggled to keep the sane course so close to a run without accidentally heaving to. I put the TillerPilot on and it seemed to do a better job. By 22:30, the boat speed had fallen from 6.5 to 5.5 kt. The ride was a lot smoother … just in time to jibe. A cargo ship appeared on AIS with exactly the opposite course as me 28 nm away. At our current speeds (5 kt for me an 10 kt for it), we were about 2.5h apart. However, I was within 1h of altering my course 90 degrees. A few minutes later, the ship dropped off the AIS. I turned on the Iridium GO and downloaded a new weather forecast and AIS data. The phantom ship was not listed. Strange. At midnight, about 15 nm from Huahine Ite, I jibed with a new heading of 240, within 10 of the waypoint. The boat was making 5-6 kt in 25 kt wind with 18 kt gusts from the E. The course allows me to clear Raiatea, the island to the west of Huahine, about 35 nm from my current location. A new cargo ship appeared 20 nm out, but it will pass N of me. Since there did not appear to be any hazards, I laid down to sleep and set alarms at 1h intervals. During the next 1.5h, the boat accidentally jibed and the TillerPilot overcorrected into a beam reach twice. It seemed to have trouble with the westerly tack, something with gusts and waves. I switched back to the wind vane and it seemed to do a better job. The wind vane did an excellent job the second half of the night. At dawn, I was overtaken by the cargo ship Coral Islander 2. When it was 20m behind me (and I had received a collision alert) I contacted the captain via VHF and he changed course to pass my stern. At sunrise, I was doing 5 kt in a broad reach with 16 kt wind from 105. To the N and NE to there is some nasty looking weather, but it does not look too bad windward. By 7:30, the wind had dropped to 10 kt and the boat speed was 4.5 kt with the full Yankee and one reef in a the main. It was relatively calm, so rather than shake out the main, I took a nap (not enough sleep last night). Also, I sneezed a half dozen times last night and woke with a scratchy throat. There is no congestion. It feels like some sort of allergy … maybe mold. I got up at 8:30, put some water on for tea, and shook out the first reef. I am past Raiatea, which I could see, being about 12 nm at my closest approach. Except for the Maupihaa atoll about 150 nm W, the only significant land mass between me at Tonga is Niue, about 240 nm E of Tonga (I should pass well north of the Southern Cook Islands). At 9:00 I jibed to 280 to pick up some speed but also to avoid some predicted dead air south. I am doing about 5 kt in 11 kt wind on a starboard beam reach. I have a large bunch of bananas, 40 or so small ones, hanging from the cabin ceiling. They were green when I got them a few days ago, but they are starting to ripen. Will have a fire sale for the next 3-4 days. Around 165W (about four days from now) I will move to the UTC-11 time zone. Just before Tonga, I will cross the dateline and enter the UTC+13 time zone. This is significant because part of the rationale for leaving on a Monday was to avoid arriving on a Sunday, when customs and immigration is closed in Tonga … but that is a long ways away. It started to rain at 9:30. Nothing threatening, but it’s not a great day for solar. It was a good call to jibe northward. I must have been in the shadow of Huahine because after sailing a couple of miles the wind picked up to 216 with gusts of 20/ driving me about 6 kt in a beam reach. 4_At 10:00, 24h after leaving Tahiti, I had made 107 nm towards the waypoint, which is remarkable given the time spend navigating between islands and dealing with less than ideal sea/wind conditions. At 10:24 I received a MSSI distress alert on the VHF. It was 4h old and the coordinates were 120 nm away, near Tahiti. Because of the distance, it was not possible to establish VHF communication. Because the location was near a high population density, I assumed someone in a better position to help responded. At 14:00 the wind picked up a bit and when big waves hit the boat broadside, it tended to round up and the autopilot couldn’t recover. I furled 50% of the Yankee and put a reef in the main. This slowed the boat down quite a bit, to 4.5-5 kt, but it solved the problem. Also, I jibed south at the recommendation of the latest weather forecast. This also helped with the waves. Also, it is midafternoon and the batteries are not charged completely. I shut down everything but the navigation instrumentation and TillerPilot. I made 99 nm towards the waypoint since this time yesterday while sailing a total of 122 nm.

Current Position: 17 19.024’S 150 08.284’W; Local Timezone: UTC-10; SOG: 6.5 kt COG: 285; TWS: 26 kt; TWD: 86; Distance to Waypoint (Tonga, 250): 1361; Total Miles Sailed: 4267 nm;
Comments: Like two nights ago, I was awaken in the middle of the night, about 2:00, by the rolling of the boat and the sound of surf. It was high tide about midnight. At about 5:30 the boat was still rolling quite a bit at low tide. The next high tide is just about noon. At 9:00, the PW forecasts were updated. I charted a route to Tonga and uploaded it to the Zeus 3S. I finished readying the boat (running through my pre-passage checklist), made a big breakfast, then weighed anchor at 9:30. As I passed the marina, I called Port Control Traffic Tower (VHF 12) for permission to enter the channel. I crossed the channel into the ocean at 10:00 with 1388 nm to the waypoint. There were significant standing waves at the entrance to the channel with the incoming tide. It gave me a chance to test the engine and new prop pitch. The boat ran near hull speed (7.3 kt) at 2800 rpm. It seems that I have the pitch about right. In any case, I cannot seem to force the prop any further. The distance to Tonga (as the bird flies) is 1389 nm. The first challenge is getting out of the shadow of Tahiti and Moorea. The wind was blowing from the S through the channel that separates the two islands, so I set a course to the east of Moorea, figuring I’d get easterly winds once I cleared Tahiti. The winds were light, about 5 kt, so I motor sailed with one reef in the main. The swell became confused in the channel between the islands. It was a washing machine and hard to sail. The winds picked up with 30m, 10-12 kt) and backed easterly, as expected. I had to sheet the main because the boat was rolling and pitching, but I nonetheless picked up a kt or so in speed. I was gaining on a sailboat (without AIS) in front of me and a 62’ sailboat was gaining on me from behind and passed 39m later. They were apparently heading for the Cook Islands. An hour out, I cleared Tahiti and the winds picked up to 20 kt with gusts of 25 from the E with big swell in the same direction. A 44’ sloop caught up and passed me just as I rounded Moorea, but they ended up jibing just behind me and pulled into an anchorage on Moorea. A little after noon, I settled into a broad reach at 280 -(waypoint at 251) doing 6.5-7.5 kt with three-quarters of the Yankee and one reef in the main in 20 kt winds. The good news is the wind vane seems to be working … fingers crossed. For the first time today, I was finally making some progress towards the waypoint. I have to admit, it’s nice to have wind instruments again. I started to put the fishing line out, but thought better of it. The fridge is already full of food. I see White Malkin 220 nm ahead of me. He left for Tonga on Saturday, more than two days ahead of me. It is 13:30. Bora-bora is on my heading about 85 nm away, so it looks like I am going to have to jibe sometime in the early morning hours. I spent most the afternoon laying in the cockpit, enjoying the sea air, despite the fact massive waves would sometimes break over the starboard beam, showering me with seawater. It started to rain at 15:25. The wind picked up a little bit to 25 kt, but it did not feel threatening. The high winds made the boat want to round up a bit, but the wind vane handled the issue. I turned the radar on, but did not see anything of concern. I did note two cargo ships behind me, one at 9 nm and the other at 14 nm. Both were on the same course as me but offset N enough that they were not a problem. A stronger shower fell at 16:00.

Current Position: 17 33.957’S 149 37.068’W; Local Timezone: UTC-10; HDG: N/A; COG: N/A; SOG: N/A; Distance to Waypoint (Tahiti, Carrefour Bay): At Anchor; Total Miles Sailed: 4229 nm;
Comments: After putting the last of the provisions away this morning, I started cooking for the passage. I made chicken stock in the pressure cooker, then a lentil dish. I went to the Carrefour one more time for some last-minute items. I stopped by a restaurant in the marina and had a pizza and a bottle of French (of course) wine. The restaurant was fairly high-end. I had wild chickens bouncing off my shins … so South Pacific. It becomes real when the dinghy is stowed and the dive platform is raised. I’m leaving for Tonga at the next slack tide.