April 29, 2009

Last Chance at Internet
If all goes to plan, this will be the last day we have internet access before we sail south to NZ. As usual, all the planning and preparation had missed a few critical things, so the last two days have been full ones. But now we're feeling pretty comfortable with leaving the mooring field early tomorrow. Day before yesterday was rainy and completely windless, which means of course that our battery charging capability was nil from solar panels or the wind generator. That is a little uncommon, but it brought to the forefront my unease that the little Chinese generator had finally died, and we had no backup way to recharge batteries. That brought a flurry of activity on my part, digging out a spare wind generator we had, and going on a selling spree. I did find a buyer for it, which meant I could then go to the discount store and buy another little Chinese generator. This morning's project will be to set that up and give it a test run, but I think we're well covered for having electricity for the trip south now. Probably would have been OK without the generator, but we'll leave as little as possible to chance. One positive thing about getting ready for this trip is that I've sold off or given away quite a few fairly heavy items I had collected along the way, so we should have at least a little lighter load on the boat. That should help the sailing qualities.
Weather and wind along the route has been quite strange this season, with very light winds along a stretch of about 1000 miles from Kiribati to south of Fiji. At about 30 degrees south latitude it returns to the normal sequence of high and low pressure systems, producing winds of variable strengths and directions. That is the area we're studying to try to enter that leg of the sail when the pattern will give us favorable conditions. We have enough fuel to motor about 200 miles, to let us keep moving if the calms continue in the southern tropics. We're in contact with a very good weather forecaster, who is waiting for a favorable weather pattern to leave from NZ going northwest to Australia. We'll be talking to Dave on the radio as we sail, so there'll be backup for our judgment of the weather information, as well as for all the systems. We'll make our own decisions, but good advice will help. We can't keep from being a little tense heading out for a 2600 mile passage, but I doubt we've ever been better prepared.
We'll try an email using the radio day after tomorrow, and then we'll be away. Ted