Monday 27 July 2015

Ruby ~ Day 5 to the Marquesas

Position 02 33S 101 06W at 1730UTC, 1130 Boat Time (Galapagos Local)  0530 NZ Time

Course Over Ground 272d, Speed Over Ground 6.7 knots,  24 hour run 160 miles, one more than yesterday!  Wind 15-18knots from SSE, on the beam, Double reefed main, reefed jib, two sail reaching.  Swell about 2-3 metres, pretty lumpy but trying to keep this westward course with wind right on or just in front of beam to stay above stronger winds further south.  Would really like the wind to back to somewhere east so we can get wind behind beam.

Skies clouded over before sunset last night and it was a dark night with little moon breaking through and we had a few hours of drizzle.  Cleared away just before dawn and it as been a beautiful day with hardly a cloud, even starting to warm up some at last.  Passed one boat going the other way last night, first traffic we have seen apart from the fishing boat fleet on the 2nd night.

Romeo and Juliet Wilson are still here, we dont know when they rest, their poor little wings flap constantly, I hope they have worked out that we are not stationery and they are getting further from home.  At midnight I had quite a commotion above the cockpit as a red footed booby tried to land, christened Ruby the Booby she hung on to the wire life line until dawn and left rather a smelly calling card just by the cockpit!  Just how they hold onto and balance while we bounce up and down is behind me.

Mezzaluna are just 20 miles behind us, doing well and we are gaining on Ole 180 miles in front of us a little each day, Wapiti is in the lead and doing about the same speed as us over 300 miles away.  We talk with them all at 1505Z and 0105Z on 6510 for those that are trying to listen, the two front boats can't hear us on 8173, but us and Mezzaluna have a quick chat at 1500 and 0100 on 8173.  We can't yet hear the net going on in the Marquesas but are getting closer each day so should soon. 
Thats all for today, still struggling with our sleep, must get into a pattern soon we hope.
You can see our progress on a map on our mailasail blog.   Current position at 2215 UTC 02 36.31S  101 36.46W

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