Tuesday 10th July

At Sea

7 43.325 S
135 29.117 W (at Midnight)

The early hours of the morning were quite painful, we rolled around making it difficult to sleep and to be honest we were both quite glad to see the sun rise. The radio schedule told a similar tale for the 2 boats that are closest to us, only Timella now 1400 miles away were having any better weather. Whilst Gerry was on the radio and I was hand steering the boat I saw a couple of small dolphins playing in our bow wake, they are the first ones that we have seen for days. We decided to bite the bullet this morning and change tack again, this would take us back on a southward course but would end up dropping us below our desired track meaning that we were going to have to tack a couple more times at least before we get to the Marquesas unless there is a massive wind direction change. With the wind coming from astern we goose winged the sails and proceeded to run in almost the right direction. Unfortunately the swell was coming from a totally different direction and we spent the day rolling from side to side and each sail in turn flapped and collapsed under the back pressure from the other sail during the roll – are we having fun yet?!!!! By mid afternoon Gerry had played with the sails until he was sick of it, the last resort was shaking out the reef in the main. Apart from watching the sails flap, reading our books and trying to catch a few zzzzz’s we did nothing all day. We are gradually compiling a list of things that we need to attend to when we get to the Marquesas and the latest thing to be added to the list is changing the joker valve in the forward head as the toilet keeps filling up with sea water that is leaking back through the valve. Having nearly sunk the boat when I changed it last I think it is definitely a job for Gerry, besides which it’s a toilet job – not a girl’s job! When it was time for dinner I used up the last pre cooked meal that I had prepared before leaving the Galapagos, it sure tasted good. We are just about at the end of most of our fresh provisions; there will be just enough to see us into the Marquesas where we will need to restock again. I guess I could get into using the canned stuff up and then we wouldn’t have to restock until we reach Australia! The only other thing of note for the day was that we passed into the next time zone but as yet haven’t turned our clocks back as none of the other boats have crossed the line yet. Our night watches followed the same pattern as the day – it was trying sailing, we were getting alone slowly and in not quite the right direction, we are just waiting for the weather forecast to be right and for the south easterly wind that they keep promising to eventuate.