Alright, crew, the last 24 hours have been a bit of a pain! We've had light and fickle winds, ranging from a gentle 8 knots to a slightly more respectable 14. But the real kicker? Those wild shifts in direction!
It's enough to make you want to tear your hair out. In these conditions, one of the things we keep a close eye on is our VMG, or Velocity Made Good. Basically, it tells us how fast we're actually moving towards our destination.
Now, here's the thing: even if we're not pointing exactly in the right direction, we can still be making progress. But as we stray further off course, that VMG starts to drop. And if we were to keep turning away from our destination? Well, let's just say our VMG would hit zero and then start going negative. Yikes!
I'm not entirely convinced the tracker you can see tells the whole story, though. It only updates hourly, so it misses some of the, shall we say, "creative" arcs we've been making.
Typically, we gybe and find ourselves about 20 or 30 degrees off course. We can see on the chart plotter how our line goes straight for a few hours, then slowly... ever so slowly... starts curving away from our destination. It ALWAYS curves away!
And then the mental gymnastics begin: "When will it swing back?". "It MUST swing back soon, right?". "It can't be long now..." . "Is it swinging back? I THINK it's started swinging around!". "We are going to have to GYBE!".
Ah, the joys of sailing! Plus we were pushing a bit of current yesterday which didn't help.
Guess what, everyone?! The luggage saga has finally come to an end! It's officially in Melbourne!
Now, before you panic, remember that it was always meant to head there eventually. But let's just say it took the scenic route with a little tiki tour to Fiji! I am wondering if it is packed with Bula shirts and hibiscus shorts. Hopefully, it had a nice relaxing time in Fiji and is ready to rejoin the adventure Down Under.
