First 24 hours out - sailing again!

August 17, 2008. It feels great to be back on the water again and this leg has been a good time for us to just enjoy sailing. It is now around 4 PM on the 17th and we have had a great day and a half. Last night's sunset was brilliant and the moon was so bright we thought at one point another boat must be shining a spot light on us!

We had a nice first 24 hours out of Bora Bora. We departed with Stewart on Nomad, and have discovered two other boats sailing the same course out here with us - Mr. John, and Rarangi. I think both are out of Australia. It is great to know we are not alone out here. Winds are favorable although somewhat light and tend to come at a broad reach and then settle to beam, so we have made some adjustments going off course to catch the wind. The generator overheated yesterday (oh my!), and after cleaning
filters and checking fluid levels we have found there is a leak somewhere in the freshwater cooling side. We can't find the leak and don't want to fool with that while underway so we are needing to run the engine periodically to recharge batteries. At first this bugged us because we had good winds but needed the juice for our fridge, freezer, radio, autopilot, etc to run on. But then last night the winds nearly died altogether so when we cranked on the engine it charged us up and made up some
time while getting back to our initial course. Taking advantage of the light winds and seas I popped some chocolate chip cookies into the oven so that we would have some comfort food on our night watches. We are back to the 3 hour schedule. I take 9-midnight, and then 3-6 AM. Frank does midnight to 3 AM. And that way he is available to get on the SSB for the 8 AM and 8 PM cruisers nets. The static has been pretty bad so we aren't able to hear much or to talk with many others but it is nice
to have some communication while out here. So far so good, but we will be arriving in Rarotonga in 4- 5 days instead of 3 ½ which is OK with us as long as we arrive safely.