LTY UPDATE: Day#12 -Friday June 3rd, 2011 - Majuro to Fiji
Friday June 3rd, 2011
LTY time: 16:55 (UTC +12) = 04:55 UTC
Location: About 220nm NNW of Funafuti, Tuvalu
Position: 06 40.018 S, 177 51.603 E (cut & past this into Google Earth to see on map)
SOG: (Speed Over Ground) 4.8knots (sailing with Main & Jib sails))
COG: (Course Over Ground) 154 degrees True
Wind: 13-22 knots E Apparent (wind as felt by sails)
Seas/Swell: 2.5 m @ 6 seconds out of E
Air temp: 90.3F 32.4 C
Sea temp: 87.3 F 30.7 C
Humidity: 68%
Barometer: 1015mm
Distance to Funafuti: 128nm
Distance last 24 hours: 120nm
DAY #11: AMAZING NOTHINGNESS
A wonderfully uneventful day today; simply one of peaceful sailing. Well, it was interrupted a bit by needing to do some motoring for several hours last night and then again this morning as the wind turned south and was pretty much right on our nose. However by about 2pm this afternoon it had backed enough north to douse the motor and be back to the tranquility of sails alone. The wind is still has a bit too much south in it coming now pretty much right out of the East so we are not able to maintain the exact heading we want to get to Funafuti and it is keeping us a bit west of that, but we’ll just continue to keep the angle to the wind as low as possible and still keep our speed up and hope the wind continues to back more to the north. If not we’ll use the engine to help us get the last bit of easting we need into Funafuti.
The slower speeds we are traveling, now running between 3-4 knots per hour on average means our ETA in Funafuti will now likely be Sunday morning which is the day after tomorrow for us over here. When the winds were opposing us this morning coming out of the SE we considered the option of just sailing past Funafuti and going to Rotuma which is quite a bit more to the west, but as the day progressed and the wind backed around more to the NE we’ll continue to head for Funafuti and enjoy exploring that culture and island for a few days.
When I was there last year I discovered a 40-50 foot sailboat that had sunk inside the atoll and I was able to salvage a pretty good spinnaker pole with just my snorkel gear and tow it back to Learnativity. So it will be fun to go back and check it out again this year and see if there is perhaps more useful gear to salvage. We have a great little “hookah” or SNUBA outfit which is a small 12v DC electric run compressor that let’s two of us dive down to almost 60’ with just a regulator and a hose. We used it with great success back in Majuro to clean the entire bottom of the hull of Learnativity of 7 months of growth and when we get to Funafuti, if the wreck looks to have lots more to salvage we’ll put a big battery into the dingy and use our SNUBA gear to spend more time exploring it. Should be lots of fun.
This whole area of the Pacific was very active during the Second World War and so there are also hundreds of planes, helicopters, tanks, artillery and vehicles all over these atolls and make for even more interesting snorkelling and diving, although the natural wildlife is easily the most amazing and interesting for us. Fiji was about the best I’ve seen so far and so we are particularly looking forward to enjoying a lot of time below the surface when we are there and putting our SNUBA outfit to very good use.
Linda took the watch from 2am to 6am this morning and so she’s been napping most of the day, much to Ruby’s delight. No fishing lures out today as we already have our fill for at least another week and only catch what we can eat. Funafuti will likely have some fresh fruits and vegetables that we can purchase as they have some agriculture there and we’ll just wait to see if they have enough for us to buy some or not. We’re fine food supply wise without it but fresh produces is always good to have on board and we’ll see if we can replenish our supplies before we push on to Fiji. Once we get there it is fresh produce heaven as the markets are truly breathtaking both in their visual beauty with all the colours, shapes and textures as well as with the diversity, quantity and quality of more fruit, vegetables, herbs, spices and fish than you ever thought existed. Just one of the many reasons I fell so in love with this region last year and why we are back to spend more time there this year. We’ll have some amazing photos for you while we are there.
Based on my experiences last year Fiji has very good WiFi and cellular based internet access in most places so we will be much better connected while we are there and should be able to add photos and even some video to our postings to help us share the whole experience with you.
Linda, Wayne & Ruby the Wonderdog
Exploring the world one nautical smile at a time.
Regular Email:
Linsmith2009@gmail.com Wayne.hodgins@gmail.com Email when @ sea:
whodgins@ocens.net (Yes! This is the correct spelling OCENS)
We typically retrieve and answer Emails to this account via our satellite phone at least once every 24 hours. You can send as much text as you like but are asked not to send any attachments such as photos.
FaceBook pages: Wayne =
www.facebook.com/wayne.hodgins Linda =
www.facebook.com/linda.woodhouse.smith Learnativity blog:
www.learnativity.typepad.com Linda's new blog: IMITF.wordpress.com (I Made It This Far)
World Phone Voicemail:+1-501-492-9634 (has voice mail that is forwarded to us via Email)
Text Messages: (to our sat phone)
send short 140 character Text msgs via Email to:
881632510270@msg.iridium.com These are great! and free for us to receive and only 50cents for us to respond to. We will receive these right away and be able to respond quickly.
Other contact info:
Skype: woodsmith2009
Whodgins
Twitter: WWWayne
Posted via email from Learnativity