Jerri:
The sailing continues to be extremely pleasant. This morning we put up the screecher and made good way with the perfect (90 degree) wind angle for that sail. Tim kept it up through his watch, but we took it down when I got up at midnight because I’m tired, lazy, and didn’t want to deal with it. It would be fabulous to arrive to Tonga in time to check in on Saturday, but that is unlikely screecher or no. We cross the international date line on our way making us lose a day. I still think we may make it in time to anchor and sleep. The screecher will go back out tomorrow morning after E & A’s watch.
The stargazing has been phenomenal the past few nights along with a big orange waxing half moon that I see set shortly after I get up. The different view now that we’re heading southwest after 4 months of heading nearly due west is a nice change of pace.
Yesterday we dealt with garbage. It is now triple-bagged and moved from the chain locker to the dinghy. There is a heater duct that runs through the forward lockers into the two heads, but the holes cut for the duct are about an inch larger in circumference than the duct itself causing the garbage odor to seep into the heads. Yuck. Typically, this won’t be a problem because on passages we can dump most of the stinky stuff overboard and when not on passage there are garbage services. Stopping in Suwarrow and doing our best to be uber shark sensitive lead to a lot of grossness going into our cheap garbage bags. The dinghy storage should alleviate the problem, but we’re slightly concerned about the tail wind.
Tim worked on some other projects yesterday and I vaguely recall something breaking shortly after I went to bed last night. There was a big pop, but overall it was low drama. I assume that will be another thing to deal with tomorrow. In case that’s not enough to keep you on the edge of your seats, I may also defrost one of the
refrigerator/freezer set although we have a card tournament going that Alex has taken a strong lead on that may take precedence over defrosting. I’ll give you a blow by blow tomorrow night.