Amazing sailing conditions continued until around 4am when the wind dropped and Roxy had to start up an engine on her watch. Ugh, it was shaping up to be a motoring day (which was forecast). On the plus side it was incredibly mellow conditions. The fishing line was out early with a new lure in hopes of tuna poke bowls for dinner – fingers crossed.
On the approached the Grand Pass (part of New Caledonia) the depth sensor started acting up. We kept an eye on it, recycled power, and finally around 1:00pm decided to give it a scrubbing. We stopped the boat, dropped the sails, threw out a safety line, then Carl jumped in the water to clean it. Shit, it didn’t resolve the issue but it did give us each a chance to jump in and swim in thousands of meters of water. There was a shocking amount of boat drift and I was happy there was a safety line. The color of the water was a spectacular blue and the sunlight sparked all around beneath me. Such a surprisingly incredible experience. Working to swim back to the boat tt was impressive how much work it took and I would have had a bit of a panic if not for holding the safety line.
Later in the day we played with the screecher which gave us a few tenths of a knot more speed over the main/jib combo but it was still a very slow trudge. Scrapping for 5.5 knots over the ground. On the plus side we continued to have enjoyable sea conditions. This played out for the remainder of the day, well except for swapping the jib for the screecher before dark.
No Comments