Saturday, November 13, 2010

Sub-Tropical

Pacific Ocean
28 54.6S 177 41.5E

Our current latitude is about the same as Orlando Florida, but without the warming effects of the warm Gulf of Mexico it is quite a bit cooler here. Water temp is down to 71 degrees and my thermometer stopped working so I am not sure of air temp, but I am rather tempted to close the pilothouse doors to keep the chilly night air at bay. Still wearing shorts, and no sox, but have resorted to long sleeve T-shirts for some added warmth and am considering putting on a fleece.

As usual Ken McKinley has been right on with his weather forecast. We saw high 20''s with gusts to 33 knots yesterday and around sundown it started subsiding. We are currently making 9 knots towards NZ in 20 knots of wind on the beam. Seas are still a bit stirred up so there is still lots of spray on deck, but luckily we can stay in the nice dry pilothouse and not worry about it too much. We should see the winds continue to drop as we aproach a high pressure ridge south of 30 degrees South and will then have to motor for a while, possibly all the way into Opua. A little calmer weather would be nice as my legs are getting tired from bracing all the time and we have some fresh food I need to cook before it gets taken away in New Zealand (we had been expecting another day or two in Minerva when we shopped in Tonga). In the meantime, we have been using our pre-cooked meals which saves a lot of hassle in these sort of jerky, rolly conditions.

We still haven't seen any trafic out here...a good thing really, but it does get lonely and boring. I have been enjoying Chuck Paine's new book "My Yacht Designs - and the lessons they taught me" available direct from the author at ChuckPaine.com. Besides being thanked in the foreward and praised in the writup of Visions of Johanna, it is neat to see some of the other projects I worked on as well as get his take and hear his stories from a fabulous career.

ETA is currently under 2 days, but we will slow down when we hit the high, making it more like 50-55 hours to go.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

The water temp in Maine is down to 48
Stop complaining!