November 10, 2007

Getting Close
We crossed the Equator at 08:50 local time this morning, back to the Northern Hemisphere! Could see most of the Big Dipper last night, but cloud obscured the horizon, so no sighting of Polaris yet. Lots of meteorites, though.
We're just under 100 miles southeast of Tarawa now, and the wind has decided to get silly with us. Yesterday evening it swung more to the north and picked up, then became gusty. So, we ended up going hard upwind all night, trying several different sail combinations to get good performance without beating ourselves or the boat up too much. I hate having to do sail changes in the dark, as it's easy to mess up, and hard to figure out how to trim when you can't see clearly. Anyway, we got through to dawn, and now it's swung back more easterly, so we can sail more free, but the sea is all dark blue lumps with big whitecaps, and there is a strong current making it harder to stay on track. In about 60 miles (10 hours??) we clear the corner of Maiana Atoll and turn due north for the last 30 miles to Tarawa. That's when the fun REALLY begins unless the wind backs east a bit more, or drops off to 12 knots, or preferably both (FAT CHANCE).
Had a little scare a half hour ago when I saw the battery charge gauges were showing no input. We NEED the batteries to be good and hot, especially tonight! Fortunately, last year I changed the main power connection board to make it a lot easier to get to than it was for the first 15 years on Sequester. Took 10 minutes to dismantle the settee without breaking anything (Can only work with one hand, have to hold on with the other) and in about 2 more minutes I found the connection that had worked loose or corroded. Just loosened and re-tightened the set screws and we were back in business. Then I had to reassemble the settee, without dropping the printer and short circuiting the batteries. Got it made. That's proper boat design, to be able to repair things with one hand while the sea is on the "agitate" cycle. So with any kind of luck we should be headed in the pass at Tarawa by mid morning tomorrow, as soon as the sun is high enough to not be in our eyes. It's a big ship channel, but you still have to be able to see the coral, so you know where the edges are. As our friend Doug once told me, the problems with the ocean are almost always the edges. Ted