Not yet

Dear Friends;

After a slow night on Tuesday trying to keep the genoa from slapping itself to death while still moving forward, Wednesday dawn brought squalls. This is the Solomon Islands after all, most times home to the SPCZ, so this was not surprising. What was surprising was that one particular squall brought strong westerly winds and then seemed to suck away all hope of wind. Behind it came sunny weather and calm winds. We motored for a few hours and then gave up hope of arrival on Thursday without using an a lot of diesel when we aren't sure of when we can resupply, so we turned off the engine and drifted. What emerged from this is the insight that we have 0.5 knots of adverse current, pulling us east. And so, we galumped and slapped and went round in circles until nightfall, when with a whisper of wind, we were able to move once again towards our destination. NOW all we have to worry about is going slow enough to arrive in the morning on Friday (and not before).

Life is good; we have fresh baked bread, leftover pasta sauce and plenty of reading material.

At 6/20/2012 and 06:16 UTC (GMT) our position was: 11°03.84'S / 164°11.64'E.



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