Moku pe'a Report

0600 position 5-35N 157-23W. Day's run 151 miles

At 0600 I was just getting ready to wake Rocky to go on watch when a
squall hit. We quickly progressed from 6 knots of wind and full sail to
one reef in the main, then one in the jib, then a second reef in the main.
When things settled and the squall cleared it was blowing 18 knots from
the ENE, just like the grib files called for today. But it didn't stop
there. The wind continued to build into the early afternoon and by 1400
we had 3 reefs in the main and jib. It was probably blowing just under 30
knots. Now this is the North Pacific Ocean that I remember…

It got very bumpy during the evening and stayed that way. Rocky says it
feels like we are riding a bronco. My guess is we are in the equatorial
counter current which sets to the East and would make the seas lumpy. The
wind backed off to the high teens during the night, but boat speed stayed
over 6 knots so we left the third reef in the main and just unrolled a bit
of jib.

I should have known that praising the reliability of the sat phone the
other day would be a mistake. This morning we had a funky connection.
Some emails went out and some came in, but the software says the blog post
didn't transmit. Rocky suggested trying again, but I'm not going to get
sucked into that game again. Kara and I often gave it "just one more try"
on our 2011 cruise and once ended up with a $30 phone bill for the day and
the same problem when we were done. I remember Lori's comment the
following day, "How come you sent me the same email eight times?" Turns
out the email was sent, but it didn't register as sent on my laptop
software. So if you didn't see a blog post yesterday, Lori will let me
know and I'll resend yesterday's post tomorrow.

I'll probably jinx this too by talking about it, but I believe we have
left the ITCZ behind us. The skies are organized and mostly clear now.
There's lightning out there somewhere though. Every once in a while a
flash off in the distance lights the sky a bit. Hard to tell where it's
coming from, hopefully behind us. Not bad at all, just one big squall and
wind all the way through.

Rocky and I rehashed procedures for man overboard the other day. He said
his biggest fear is coming up on deck and finding that he is the only one
on the boat. It's my biggest fear too, not because I can't handle the
boat alone, but because my crew mate in the water has absolutely zero
chance of survival unless I do absolutely everything perfectly to effect
his recovery. Key is marking the position where you discovered him
missing, and then retracing your path exactly until you find him. We lost
a man overboard in the '87 Transpac on Merlin. We were going 15 knots at
the time with the spinnaker up, and as Murphy's Law dictates, everything
went wrong in trying to get the spinnaker and staysail down so we could go
back to pick him up. By the time we got the boat under control and turned
around, our man in the water was out of sight, and it was my job as the
navigator to find him. Terrifying. But we found him and the story had a
happy ending.

It is looking like an arrival at Christmas Island late tomorrow or Tuesday
morning. The forecast is calling for decreasing winds but we're hopeful
that they won't drop enough to slow us down.