Friday

Its friday here, my third day at sea and I am slowly settling in to the rhythms of the ocean - or, less poetically my nausea is almost gone and I have eaten some small meals - some rice and tomato, as well as a few lollies, a fresh pear and my cereal with UHT Milk and coffee for breakfast.
I had lots of amazing dreams last night in my numerous naps, one of which was nearly 4 hours long. But every time I woke and checked, we were on track, the wind was steady and boat speeds was around 5.5knots. And no lights on any horison. Actually I look forward to the night - firstly because you can sleep, and that really helps to pass the time, but also because you cant see anything and so theres less to worry about. I suppose for some it might work the other way. I am not worried about damaging any ships that might get in the way as I have only ever seen a ship out here once and that was close to Land. I have a device on the mast thats supposed to enhance the radar reflection of Sapphire, and make her more visible to ships, and I have regulation lights on, and whenever I am up I check, and of course all day long I scan the horison : Nothing. I realise of course that boats do get run down by ships, and close to land I use my AIS receiver to help warn me if there are any. But out here in the Pacific? I am sure people will disagree but it seems about as likely as being taken out by a car coming through a red light in Town when you have Green and are driving through the intersection - we've all seen the Police Videos on TV of people driving through lights when chased, and crashing into innocent drivers - it happens but which of us hesitates to drive through when we have Green?

At noon every day I work out our position and mark it on the paper chart. Todays plot was 1 nm from where I was at noon on Wednesday 22nd June! I thought the waves looked familiar - and the birds too! Our 24 hour run was 122nm and we were 436 nm from Suwarrow. The wind fluctuates a little in strength and direction but esentially its SSE and 14 to 20 knots, so at times were are almost surfing down the odd wave at over 7 knots and mostly today we have been doing about 6.5 with all the headsail poled out to port and the Main to starboard with one reef still in. The Bolts on the Hydrovane seem to be rock solid but I noticed the threaded pin closing the U Bolt attaching the Mainsheet block to the end of the Boom had completely unscrewed itself and was just waiting for a nudge to let it all go. I fixed that without incident.

OK well thats it for Today. We roll west, and all is good.
Position Right Now at o2.00 UTC ( 4pm polynesian time, 2 pm NZ and 12 noon SYdney) is 156 29W and 15 56 S

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