The conditions remain variable and swing from blue sky and a nice 'trade wind' day to grey and miserable within a few hours.
The wind is from 14 to 23 knots, and we are reefed down to the highest gust, and also to take the load off the autopilot. The 24-hour run was 156 nm.
We have had a few big waves into the cockpit, which makes the mission to the engine room a little more exciting, but whether from timing, luck or both, there hasn't been any splashing-type incidents into the engine room.
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| It's not all gloom |
The galley pump on the engine seems to be happy in its new role, and everything is working better than I hoped. I only run the engine for charging for one hour at a time, though, as that seems to be the limit for the pump to start getting warm. It's a duty-cycle pump, so better not to push it beyond its limits.
It's surprisingly cold out here. At night I am wearing a jacket, long pants and socks, which wasn't quite what I had in mind when I signed up for a trip from French Polynesia!
On the weather front, I can already see another huge high-pressure system forming east of New Zealand in about six days. It looks like there could be a repeat of the conditions that kept us stuck in Raiatea for so long. Hopefully, by then we are far enough east for it not to have too much effect on us. As always with these longer-range forecasts, there is plenty of time for things to change, but it's something I will be keeping an eye on.