Ist August 2017
Current Position: 09 34.7S / 131 35.7W at 0200UTC, 2000hrs Galapogos time, 1800 boat time, Alaska. SOG 7.8kts. COG 255. Wind ESE 12kts. Sea State: rough, rolly, rough & rolly!. DTR 423 nm. 24hr run 176nm .
Words can't describe what an absolutely boring watching grass grow type of day it's been today. We are still running dead downwind. For a while we had the main and jib out but now it is just the mainsail as the wind angle is too far behind us to even fill the little handkerchief size jib that was out.
Eventually the cards fall and today was the day. Our mechanical clocks have been wound back two hours to Alaska time. So now when our bodies say it's bed time, we have an extra two hours of brilliant sunshine to cope with. It seems very odd to go to this time zone but if you look at an atlas the relative position of where we are compared to Sitka in Alaska makes it perfectly clear. Not quite sure that our internal clocks would agree though. Once we arrive in the Marquesas there will be another half hour time change as well. By then we should be really screwed up.
The revolting brown slimy gunk and the bright green carpet of grass that has been steadily building up on the hulls and transoms and basically anything that is in the water that covers and uncovers since we left the Galapagos has pretty much reached its peak. You'd really think that a boat in constant motion couldn't accumulate all that slime but it does. All types of little critters hitch a ride as you come across the pacific and every boat that travels this route has the exact same complaint. It will take us a few days of hard yakka to clean it all off.
Looking at GWTW right now we look like a derelict boat that has been left on a mooring ball for years with no sign of a haulout yard or a lick of antifoul paint with in cooee. If we were in Sydney Harbour and our hulls look the way they do we'd most certainly be issued a fine by the waterways officials for not maintaining our vessel according to clause such and such of some bureaucratic code. Just the thought of all the rules and regulations when we eventually get back to Australia makes me cringe and just want to keep on cruising until we can do it no more.
We now only have three more sleeps 'till we make landfall, well unless something goes very pear shaped in the meantime.
Are we there yet? Almost.
Follow us on our tracker at:
https://aus-share.inreach.garmin.com/GoneWithTheWind
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