Things are going smoothly, and we're settling into the watch routine. We're currently doing 4 hours off and 4 hours on, which is a bit of a change for me. I'm used to doing 3 on, 3 off. It's a tricky balance, really. Four hours is a long time to be sitting around on watch, especially when it's pitch black and all you can hear is the wind and the waves. But then again, it also means a fantastic amount of sleep. On the other hand, 3 hours on watch doesn't seem too bad, but you always feel like a bit of extra sleep would be amazing.
Another option, of course, would be to have extra crew, but that changes the whole onboard dynamic. There would be five personalities to juggle, and things could get interesting! As it is, I have three personalities to manage, so the two crew hopefully would only have one each to deal with.
I was on watch last night, and it was one of those incredibly clear nights, with a million stars blazing overhead. I was just scanning the horizon when suddenly, there it was: a light. Big and red, hanging just above the horizon to the west. It was so bright and clear, it almost felt like it was right in front of the boat, and I was trying to process what I was looking at - it was a star. It's probably time to put the clocks back an hour as it's 6 am and completely dark, but I may wait until we get to Samoa.
Starlink proves its worth once again, and I have downloaded all the forms needed to clear into Samoa and have the email address for the advance notification. Starlink is great, but sometimes I wonder if I should be rigging up a backup. You know, just in case things go sideways with the whole Elon Musk situation and he sends me an email asking what I did last week.
The long-term weather forecast hasn't really changed, which is good in a way because it helps with planning the route. But I had honestly expected that low-pressure system near Fiji on the 3rd to vanish by now from the forecast. It's still showing up on both the GFS and ECMWF models and has been there for days. The wind remains very light and directly astern, so we're still relying on the headsail and the Yanmar to keep us moving. We're making pretty good time, though. We managed 137 nautical miles in 24 hours yesterday! And, of course, we're enjoying the benefits of being on a catamaran – it's such a nice, stable platform to be at sea on, and there is a huge benefit in light winds because the boat doesn't rock and make the sails bang so you can be sailing more efficiently in light air.
