14 May - Racing to Suwarrow

0600 position 12-17S 162-36W. Day's run 163 miles

I thought my sailboat racing days were over, but after doing some
arithmetic this morning I realized that if we put the pedal down we could
make it into Suwarrow before sunset on 14 May. So for the past twenty
four hours Moku pe'a has been a little race boat. All that really means
is we are setting a bit more sail than usual to hopefully squeeze a little
more speed out of the old gal. That also means we need to pay pretty
close attention to things so we don't overload the autopilot or get caught
by a squall with too much sail up. Even though we've been working harder,
you'll note that we didn't have our best day's run yesterday. That's
because the average wind speed was a bit less and we found a couple of
light patches where we slowed down to five knots for a while. It doesn't
take many of those to affect the day's total milage.

So far so good, and at 0600 we have approximately 64 miles to go. If we
can maintain speed we are looking at a 1600 arrival in Suwarrow. Except
for those light spots, the wind has cooperated, varying in strength from
eight to thirteen knots on the beam, and the confused three swell system
has disappeared leaving us with a small swell from the same direction as
the wind.

The second fish of the trip was landed this afternoon, another aku.
Didn't much feel like aku for dinner so we let it go. This one was caught
on a lure that Randy Reed gave us. So far the Morelli and Reed lures are
tied on productivity.

We landed a nice sized black ulua as we were entering Suwarrow's pass 28
years ago on Eleu. After we were safely on the hook in the lee of
Anchorage Island, I finally got around to cleaning the fish. I did it in
the cockpit, and after I was finished I threw the carcass over the side.
It hit the water, and then within ten seconds there was a huge commotion
next to the boat. We looked over, startled, to see three four foot black
tipped sharks fighting over the ulua's remains! The sharks must have been
attracted by the blood that drained through the cockpit scuppers as I
cleaned the fish, and were just waiting under the boat for something to
eat.

Note to self: Be careful about swimming in the Suwarrow lagoon….