Early thursday am

So it's 4AM and raining.
Lexi is sleeping and we're headed straight down wind under poled-out jib only.
Wind has slowed a bit, so the waves have more of an effect on our motion that the wind, making for uncomfortable rolling. We're still heading in the right direction at 5.4 knots.
We've sailed 2000 miles since we left the Galapagos.
996 remaining to Nuka Hiva, Marquesas
A boat in our area (folks from Green Bay, WI) had their mainsail halyard chafe through. This is the rope that hoists the sail up the mast. So the sail came down in an unplanned event, and the rest of the halyard fell down inside the mast. Bummer, Dude.
Two other boats in our group have had their electric autopilots fail, so they have to hand steer constantly until they can fix it. No problem if you have a crew of five, but the other boat has a crew of three.
Yet another boat caught a 40 lb. yellowfin tuna.
The daily radio net allows us to keep up on all this gossip.
There is a predicted period of light wind in our future. A nearby low pressure system will affect the tradewinds for a few days. We hope all this takes place several hundred miles ahead of us and sorts out before we get into that area. Otherwise we may have go swimming and bob around waiting for wind. We have enough fuel to motor about 600 miles but we have 990 to go!

otherwise, we're still sailing towards Polynesia.

Martin

As of 0400 local time, 1200 UTC
S 08*03.5'
W 123* 15.7'
Course 255* M
Speed 5.4

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