Position at 9:30 am Hawaii time, tues may 15: 23 degrees 34 minutes North, 154 degrees 13 minutes West
It's been an eventful first few days at sea. Luckily my seasickness passed after the first day. Probably because there have been no *seas* to speak of. We've had very calm weather - in fact, not even enough wind for sailing at times. Our progress has been slow, but it feels good to break into this trip slowly without getting tossed about. It seems the calmest we've ever seen the Pacific Ocean! The first full night out, we motored a bunch, then second night, after noticing an accumulation of water in the bilge, Tim found a hole in the salt water exhaust pipe cooling the engine. To repair it he used JB weld and epoxy and fiberglass cloth and magic tape - thank goodness we had some JB weld onboard! The first repair held but then he noticed a second hole which required fixing… all in all he was at it from about 5 to 11 pm. Fortunately it was super calm so we were glad to have caught this corrosion now when it was easier to fix than if we were in big seas. We have been motoring on and off since and the repairs have held up nicely. But then last night after shutting down to check the oil, etc, the engine wouldn't start! Panic! Thank goodness we quickly realized the engine stop cord had been left pulled out, so once it was pushed in, the engine started right up.
Well, now our challenge will deciding how much more to use the engine when the winds are light. We will want to conserve fuel to use at the most opportune times. We started with just under 100 gallons, which gives us about 200 hours of motoring time. So far we've already used maybe 13 gallons, deciding to take advantage of the opportunity to motor east as much as possible while winds were too light to move us with just the sails. As Tim puts it, we will have to be sailors as much as possible from here on out. Sailing in light wind is a definite skill, especially in a boat as heavy as ours! We've been playing with the spinnaker and our mizzen staysail, and I'm sure we'll get more practice today. We expect the winds to fill in from the east in a day or so and we'll be heading north then, hoping for a smooth crossing.
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