A slow news day ...

Under way to the Marquesas, S09-22 W129-49

9° 22' 0" S, 129° 49' 0" W

.. on Namani today. After two weeks of wind from the SE...ESE with true wind speeds solidly in the 12...15+kn range and good progress at an average boat speed of 5.5kn, someone flipped a switch today and we're now moving at around 3.5...4kn in 8...10kn of true wind. Fortunately, seas have gone down as well, so it's not uncomfortable. Also, even at this slow speed, the bioluminescense in our current patch of ocean is so strong that you can almost read the paper in the glow of Namani's wake - quite a sight. On today's weather fax it looks like the ITCZ has dropped down all the way to 5S west of 120W and it seems we may have rather light winds for the remaining approx. 500nm to the Marquesas. No complains though as we've had a full two weeks of uninterrupted tradewind sailing under sunny/starry skies.

With crossing 127-30 West longitude we did enter a new time zone yesterday (now 9 hrs "behind" UTC). We chose to postpone the switch for Namani's "ship's time" though and to stay with Alaska's DST for a few more degrees of longitude in order to enjoy dinners at sunset rather than in the dark. One of the perks of sailing in mid ocean - you get to pick your personal time zone ;-)

We did make radio contact with John on Arctic Tern III tonight (we sailed on his boat in Alaska a few years ago). He's already left the Marquesas and is now bound for Tahiti. Also moving slowly in light winds but doing well.

That's all for today... all is well aboard, stay tuned...

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