Day 11 - Change is Good

Day 11 4/9/06 4:31 am
Coordinates............ 05 01.978N, 127 48.272W
Heading................ approx. 209
Boat speed..............6 knots
24 hr total nm .........150 nautical miles (NM)
miles total since MX....approx. 1600 nm
Wind direct. & speed....N/NE 12 - 15 knots
Swell direct. & ht .....N 3 - 6 ft.
Cloud cover.............85%
Barometer...............994

What a different a day makes! Judging by all the rain and small squalls we have be through today, we have decided we must have entered the that ITCZ. Rain, Rain, Rain, glorious rain. Bet all you Washington folks didn't want to hear that word again. These are the first drops of significant precipitation we have seen in over 6 - 7 months. We were tickled pink. It was such a nice change to see that even the boys were excited and put out bowls to collect it. The boat looks a little cleaner and we were all happy for the distraction. Dare I say it made us a bit homesick. The squalls were never very big and did not carry much wind so it was always enjoyable to watch them form and move on the radar. The swells as well seemed to be a little less busy today giving us all a break. Though I was informed that after I went to sleep tonight for Bruce's first shift, we clocked 35 knots sustained and up to 40+ gusts. Apparently I can sleep through anything.

We have nearly come to our mark to begin our turn, thus the new compass heading tonight. We have been reviewing our weather faxes called grib files. They are a picture of the wind, where it is and where it is projected to be over the next 48 hours. From those, we try to anticipate where and when is the best place to cross the equator. We have chosen now to begin that process. At present we have a fairly straight shot to the Marquesas but we shall see what happens in the middle. The big issue for most people becomes, how much fuel do you have left?, how many hours of motoring/charging remain? In discussion with all the boats out here, the big surprise has been just how much more we run our batteries down than expected. Everyone is having a hard time maintaining very full batteries. Personally, we have never had them run so low. Between the refrigerator, freezer, computers and the auto pilot, the they are all working extremely hard and take a lot of juice. Thus we are trying to keep our consumption down to a minimum.

To add to poor Bruce's sleepy head issues, we are doing this funny time change shuffle, which has us confused at any given moment. As we travel west, we are changing back a few time zones in a matter of days. We add to that day light saving time, and a few other boats that are never in the same zone at the same time. Lastly, all the radio nets that we listen to are in UTC time, which was hard enough to keep track of when we did know what time it was. Again, add in our sleepy heads and we nearly have smoke coming out our ears each time we try to figure out where we are. At this point we are lucky to remember each others names. Hopefully in a few days we will all be on the other side, more rested and wiser for the efforts.

until next time,
love lisa and the boys