We decided to stop at Beveridge Reef, located about 140nm E-SE of Niue. A cruising guidebook refers to this as one of those “out of this world experiences that shouldn’t be missed”. Beverage Reef is an isolated, horseshoe-shaped, completely submerged (at high tide) atoll with lots of coral and marine life inside. The only entrance into the lagoon is a small gap on the west end. Its turquoise-blue interior lagoon has a wide plateau of white sand that rims the inside of the reef, which is about 4 miles long and 2 miles wide. At high tide the surrounding reef is under water and there is nothing to be seen except the breaking waves on the outer reef and a wreck–a small fishing boat stuck in the coral’s unyielding grasp. This is not a good place to stop during heavy weather as the waves break over the reef and makes anchoring inside uncomfortable. The day we approached the reef, the winds were calm and we had to motor, so it just made sense to stop. We arrived at 3pm, crossed the lagoon, then anchored near the east side of the reef in 20′ of crystal clear water. As we crossed the lagoon, the depth never varied much from 30′. We saw grey sharks and a stingray swimming under the boat, and could hear the surf breaking on the reef 500 yards away. Our boat was completely still at low tide and barely rocked even at high tide. We celebrated our arrival with some nice, cold “beveridges”!

Two other boats were here when we arrived, and one stopped by in their dinghy to say hello. About 8 years ago, Ken and Beth on SV Eagle Wings sailed from Chicago through the Great Lakes, down the Atlantic coast, through the Caribbean and the Panama Canal, and across the Pacific download photoshop cs5. They now cruise between New Zealand and the South Pacific http://canadianviagras.com/.

We liked Beveridge Reef so much that we decided to spend another day. After a relaxing morning of reading and drinking coffee, we hopped in the dinghy and explored the wreck on the NE side of the reef. The MV Liberty was a steel fishing boat that has been on the reef for at least 8 years. We tied our dinghy to the stern and Jacintha and I hopped aboard. The wreck sits at an angle with the bow under water and the stern above. After snorkeling around it, it became obvious how it came to its end on the reef–a tangled line can still be seen wrapped around the propeller. I imagine they were fishing to the east of the reef when they fouled the prop, and were unable to free it before crashing. We were told that the captain and all the crew survived. Next we took the dinghy closer to the breaking waves until we were on the reef in 2′ of water. We dropped our dinghy anchor and walked onto the reef. At nearly low tide, we were standing in 6″ of water and about 50′ away huge waves were crashing onto the outer edge of the reef. It was an amazing experience to think we were over a hundred miles from land and were standing on the edge of a reef!

Current conditions: 15knt S wind, sunny skies, 6knt boat speed.
We spotted the tall mountain on Rarotonga from 50 miles out on day 5. We are now 25 miles away and will arrive between 9 and 10pm. There is no anchorage on Rarotonga and the only mooring is at Avatiu Harbor on the north end of the island. We’ll have to hove-to a few miles off the coast until tomorrow daybreak, then radio the harbor master to get instructions on checking into the Cook Islands.
Dividing the nearly 600 mile passage into two halves, the first half can be summarized as light winds, smooth seas, and a lot of motoring. The second half was quite the opposite–plenty of wind, rough seas, and almost all sailing. The wind direction changed a lot, but was always in front of the beam, making it a slower than normal passage. Most of the time we sailed close-hauled and beat into the waves. As a front went through us late on day 3, the wind went to the mid-20’s and waves were breaking on deck (and of course it was night-time). After that it was mostly a S or SW wind, not the typical SE trade winds we were hoping for. In spite of that, we had a good passage with Otto (electric auto pilot) steering most of the first half, and Ian (mechanical steering wind vane) steering most of the second half. I remember hand-steering during a 4-hour night shift when the seas were too rough for Ian to maintain good control–other than that, we mostly relaxed and just made periodic adjustments to the wind vane.
This has been our longest passage with just the 3 of us aboard and we were wondering how the sleep deprivation would affect us. Karen and I did 4 hour watches at night–I took 8pm to midnight, Karen took midnight to 4am, and I did 4am to 8am. The rest of the day we took turns in the cockpit while the other got caught up on sleep. We ran the Garman chartplotter with AIS to alert us if an AIS-equipped vessel came within 12 miles of us, which allowed us to take short naps while on watch (something we didn’t do during the 23-day crossing when we had 3 taking watch). This worked well for us and we aren’t exhausted after 5 days. We didn’t spot any boats (visually or on AIS) during the entire passage.
Jacintha did great on the passage too. On the first day out, she asked me when we’d get there. This was right out of Bora Bora and the sea was choppy so we were all not feeling so great. I told her it would be 5 days, and she smiled and said, “well, at least it’s not 10”! Now that’s a great attitude!! She finished her math book, worked on some vocabulary, read a lot, and watched a lot of movies. She slept in the cockpit most of the nights under blankets. Since the Marquesas, we’ve moved south through 12 degrees of latitude, or 720 miles. Being mid-winter in the southern hemisphere, we are now feeling the temperature change, especially at night. Sailing into a headwind, we needed 2 layers at night to stay comfortable. We even pulled out our foul weather gear when the spray was coming into the cockpit.
During the passage we noticed the Mizzen boom topping-lift broke. Since the Mizzen sail was up, it didn’t matter, but when we take the sail down there would be nothing to support the boom. A cotter-ring used on the pin to attach a block to the topping-lift line failed, but luckily the pin landed on deck and I had plenty of spare rings. With me clipped-in and standing on the push-pit reaching overhead and Karen handing me tools and the parts as needed, we were able to fix it in a very rolly sea!
Looking forward to exploring Rarotonga!

Hi from Apropos on day 3 out of Bora Bora, heading to Rarotonga. Our current position is 19deg 5min S, 156deg 00 min W which puts us over half way there. Calm seas, light winds, and sunny skies. We’re presently sailing along the rhumb line at 5.7 knots in a NW wind of 7-8 knots with full Genoa, Main, and Mizzen sails up. Nothing to see out here but blue ocean–no birds, no islands, no ships. Jacintha and I just finished watching the movie We Bought A Zoo. Karen made a big pot of Minestrone for dinner!! We have to eat all our fruits and vegetables before reaching Rarotonga or customs will confiscate them upon arrival when they come aboard for the required inspection. We still have some limes, bananas, oranges, carrots, and potatoes.
I was beginning to worry about fuel consumption since we motored for a straight 40 hours on days 1-2, but the wind picked up enough to sail. We still have over half of our fuel supply in the tanks. The long motoring did our batteries good since they were running low from our 16-days at anchorage in Bora Bora. Even though we used the generator every few days, it takes a long-running charge to get them back to a fully charged state. We even used the microwave last night to make popcorn!

“An adventure is not about where it ends. Because that’s not what an adventure is about.  So anything that happens from here on out is a bonus”. –quote from We Bought a Zoo.

[pin 4320] Hi from Apropos on day 3 out of Bora Bora, heading to Rarotonga. Our current position is 19deg 5min S, 156deg 00 min W which puts us over half way there. Calm seas, light winds, and sunny skies. We’re presently sailing along the rhumb line at 5.7 knots in a NW wind of 7-8 knots with full Genoa, Main, and Mizzen sails up. Nothing to see out here but blue ocean–do birds, no islands, no ships. Jacintha and I just finished watching the movie We Bought A Zoo. Karen made a big pot of Minestrone for dinner!! We have to eat all our fruits and vegetables before reaching Rarotonga or customs will confiscate them upon arrival when they come aboard for the required inspection. We still have some limes, bananas, oranges, carrots, and potatoes. I was beginning to worry about fuel consumption since we motored for a straight 40 hours on days 1-2, but the wind picked up enough to sail. We still have over half of our fuel supply in the tanks. The long motoring did our batteries good since they were running low from our 16-days at anchorage in Bora Bora. Even though we used the generator every few days, it takes a long-running charge to get them back to a fully charged state. We even used the microwave last night to make popcorn!

Hi from Apropos in the Tuamotus. After 18 wonderful days in the Marquesas, visiting 4 of the islands, we up-anchored and sailed towards the Manihi atoll in the Tuamotus Archipelago. The passage took 3 days, 4 hours and covered 499 miles. We broke our best 24-hour distance-covered-record during the Pacific Puddle Jump crossing by 2 miles–162 nm on day 3. The passage was more tiring with just two of us on watch, but we managed well. We sailed the entire way with winds averaging 15 knots on a beam reach. The first 2 nights we sailed through squalls with winds reaching 25 knots. Seas were 4-6′ on the beam, so as usual, cooking or doing anything down below was difficult. I pulled in a 30″ Wahoo on a hand line in the morning of day 2, so we had a real nice dinner that night.

Entering an atoll requires precise timing. Most atolls have 1 or 2 passes and when the tide is going in or out, strong currents flow through them. The best time to transit a pass is during slack (just after high tide or low tide), when current is at a minimum. A few hours before or after slack can make a big difference with current and breaking waves. When you leave on a long, multi-day passage, you try to plan for arriving before a slack time, but many factors influence the actual arrival time–wind, current, sea state. We up-anchored at 8am and knew the passage was 500 miles, so I based our arrival on a 5.0 knt average. This would take 4.2 days and our arrival would be in the late morning so we could transit the pass near noon. 5.0 knt is slow for our boat, but the wind predictions are not usually very accurate and I figured some motoring would be required. An early arrival would just mean waiting at the pass entrance until slack occurred (slack occurs 2-3x per day, but evening times are never good for entering an atoll that has lots of reefs inside). Worst case scenario would be needing to wait outside the atoll overnight if we arrived in the afternoon. Since the winds were stronger than expected, we had a fast passage and averaged a whopping 6.6 knots! This not only cut 24 hours off the passage, but also timed our arrival perfectly, 15 minutes before slack (ok, I admit that was mostly luck, but we hand-steered the final leg to maximize speed). So we motored through the pass at slack with Karen at the helm and me up the ratlines to look for shallow reefs. We had information that said the channel depth at low slack was 8′, so didn’t panic too much when we saw the depth sounder drop to 2′ (measures water depth below the 6′ keel) near the reef crossing. It soon went back up to 30′ and we breathed a sigh of relief.

The Manihi atoll is 14 miles long and 5 miles wide. Inside are lots of shallow reefs, and lots of black pearl farms. The outer fringe is lined with trees, and a small village is located near the pass entrance on the west fringe. A luxury resort and a small airport are on the north fringe. After anchoring in 60′ of water near the village, we relaxed and got caught up on our sleep.

Today we explored the village where we met Fernando (we heard about him from our cruising guidebook).  He’s full of energy and runs the village bakery that makes 300 baguettes per day and also fishes. He showed us the bakery equipment and explained how the baguettes are made. He also explained how he fishes for Tuna and offered to take me fishing on Friday. Tomorrow he is going spear-fishing on the other end of the atoll and showed us a good spot to anchor there, so we will move the boat 12 miles to the eastern end of the atoll and see him over there. He said the water is clear and snorkeling is great there, so we hope to get in the water and relax on the white-sand beaches there.  Right now we’re sitting in his wife’s cafe eating casse croute (baguette with ham, cheese, and egg) and using wifi to update the blog.

We learned that the black pearl farms went out of business about 3 years ago here in Manihi. The market crashed then as China began farming black pearls, glutting the market. Ten years ago the population of Manihi was 1000, and today it’s only about 300. We found the natives to be very friendly and happy people.

[pin 4320] Hi from Apropos in the Tuamotus. After 18 wonderful days in the Marquesas, visiting 4 of the islands, we up-anchored and sailed towards the Manihi atoll in the Tuamotus. The passage took 3 days, 4 hours and covered 499 miles. We broke our best 24-hour distance-covered-record during the Pacific Puddle Jump crossing by 2 miles–162 nm on day 3. The passage was more tiring with just two of us on watch, but we managed well. We sailed the entire way with winds averaging 15 knots on a beam reach. The first 2 nights we sailed through squalls with winds reaching 25 knots. Seas were 4-6′ on the beam, so as usual, cooking or doing anything down below was difficult. I pulled in a 30″ Barracuda on a hand line in the morning of day 2, so we had a real nice dinner that night. Entering an atoll requires precise timing. Most atolls have 1 or 2 passes and when the tide is going in or out, strong currents flow through them. The best time to transit a pass is during slack (just after high tide or low tide), when current is at a minimum. A few hours before or after slack can make a big difference with current and breaking waves. When you leave on a long, multi-day passage, you try to plan for arriving before a slack time, but many factors influence the actual arrival time–wind, current, sea state. We up-anchored at 8am and knew the passage was 500 miles, so I based our arrival on a 5.0 knt average. This would take 4.2 days and our arrival would be in the late morning so we could transit the pass near noon. 5.0 knt is slow for our boat, but the wind predictions are not usually very accurate and I figured some motoring would be required. An early arrival would just mean waiting at the pass entrance until slack occurred (slack occurs 2-3x per day, but evening times are never good for entering an atoll that has lots of reefs inside). Worst case scenario would be needing to wait outside the atoll overnight if we arrived in the afternoon. Since the winds were stronger than expected, we had a fast passage and averaged a whopping 6.6 knots! This not only cut 24 hours off the passage, but also timed our arrival perfectly, 15 minutes before slack (ok, I admit that was mostly luck, but we hand-steered the final leg to maximize speed). So we motored through the pass at slack with Karen at the helm and me up the ratlines to look for shallow reefs. We had information that said the channel depth at low slack was 8′, so didn’t panic too much when we saw the depth sounder drop to 2′ (measures water depth below the 6′ keel) near the reef crossing. It soon went back up to 30′ and we breathed a sigh of relief. The Manihi atoll is 14 miles long and 5 miles wide. Inside are lots of shallow reefs, and lots of black perl farms. The outer fringe is lined with trees, and a small village is located near the pass entrance on the west fringe. A luxury resort and a small airport are on the north fringe. After anchoring in 60′ of water near the village, we relaxed and got caught up on our sleep. In the following days we will explore the village (there’s a French bakery!) and do lots of snorkeling. This blog update is being done through Sailmail, so pictures will be added once we find wifi…

[pin 4320] We are 1866 nm from Puerto Vallarta on day 15. Approx. 200 miles from the equator! Blog will be updated when we reach Hiva Oa in about 8-9 days.

[pin 4320] Day 5 Mar 24 Fish On!!!! Shortly after Jim;s shift started he saw a fish at the end of the line. It was a 20+lb yellowfin tuna. Of course this happens the day after we had a nice clean shower and there was blood all over Jim’s clothes and the deck of the boat. Nick miraculously didn’t get a drop of blood on him. We filleted the fish and froze half for later and ate sashimi for lunch and cracked pepper tuna steaks for dinner. It was amazingly tender and melt in your mouth and much tastier than skipjack tuna. The winds picked up today and we were on a beam reach and going fast. Way more rocky and rolly so cooking was a challenge as everything wants to roll away from me. Overnight Ian broke due to the strong wind & wave action so we’ve all got to hand steer overnight. A stainless steel bracket holding a pulley bent up (a lot of force considering this is 1/2 inch thick stainless steel). Day 6 Mar 25 We passed our 1/4 distance today! The winds slowed down today and Jim is worried that we’re going too far west so we’ve been trying hard to head more south. Today we put up our drifter sail – it’s like a large headsail but pretty like a spinnaker. It flew well in the light winds. Provisions wise the avocados and mangos are getting really ripe whilst the apples, oranges and potatoes are doing nicely. Since the winds were light, I did some clothes washing today. Mainly Jim’s blood stained clothes from yesterday and threw in some other clothes as well and set up the clothes line on the sunny side of the boat. We had tuna fried rice for lunch and leftover steaks for dinner. No more fish for a while. Overnight the wind died down to 4-5 knots and the sails were flapping and the boom banging so we turned on the motor for a few hours and headed south. We made water, charged up our batteries and turned off the engine when the wind picked up. Day 7 Mar 26 Everyone is tired as we have been hand steering for the last 2 days/nights. Also the sea has been confused which makes the boat roll up and down and side to side. The boom creaks, the sails flap and the blocks rattle whenever we get hit on the side by the waves as the wind is too light to keep the wind in the sail. It makes it difficult to sleep as well. So we’re more grumpy and irritable. We used the whisker pole on the head sail and it stopped the sail from slapping around. Jim is unhappy about our heading but we can only go where the wind takes us and maybe we should just head to Hawaii. The winds picked up steadily through the day but our heading is dead down wind and our boat doesn’t seem to want to head in that direction. Every day at 5pm we have a gathering in the cockpit for happy hour where we have a special treat and sometimes a beer or margarita. Today we had chocolate ice cream that I smuggled on board. We had cup of noodles for dinner. Day 8 Mar 27 Another tiring night of hand steering last night. Jim finally jibed and put out the mizzen sail to port and our poled out genoa to starboard on a wing on wing configuration, Ian was happy to steer the boat. Phew! We don’t have to hand steer tonight. Ian worked well, even with his dislocated shoulder in the 15-20 knot winds. The 2 cookbooks that I have found most useful is “The Boat Galley Cookbook” by Carolyn Shearlock & Jan Irons and “The Essential Galley Companion” by Amanda Swan-Neal. Today I made mango cream pie, thanks to Amanda who’s a kiwi (from New Zealand) as her book had 5 different mango recipes. As the oven was going to be on, I also made hamburger buns for our dinner tonight. It is challenging trying to cook with the rolly waves but I’m getting the hang of it. We had the mango pie for happy hour and Nick cooked up the hamburgers for dinner.

[pin 4320] We’ve had such a pleasant stay in Mexico that it was sad to have the immigration and customs officials come to our boat to check us out of the country. We got our official “zarpe” which is the official document. Without this we’ve heard that it can tie your boat up with red tape at the next port of call in the next country. We’ve made many friends and had to say goodbye to some of them as our paths separate. We hope to meet up with them someday, at sea or on land. Flying Squirrel’s Dave & Amy and their kids Matthew & Morgan, who played minecraft with Jacintha are heading back up north doing the “Baja Bash” (sailing north up the Baja coast). We’ve had a few meals with Tom & Kelly and Sofie from Stochastic at the Vallarta yacht club (think cheese stuffed chicken wrapped with bacon) and for steaks at Sonora el Sur. They are also heading north. Yolo had Presley & Colton aboard and they had a few playdates with Jacintha. They are heading up the Sea of Cortez for the summer. Hannah on Ohanna is adventuring further south with her family towards Panama. Pelagic with Anna, Xander and Porter are currently in Panama awaiting their turn to transit the canal. We miss Billy and Gracie from Seahorse V and Bucket from Velvet Sky, they are south in El Salvador. We’re excited that Family Circus are also doing the Pacific Puddle Jump since Jacintha has so much fun playing with Amaia and Alina. They’re leaving a day later than us but will probably pass us along the way as their boat is faster – the advantages of having 2 hulls (catamaran). Korbut Rose will be crossing in April, we wish them good winds and hope to catch up with them in French Polynesia. Other boats on the puddle jump are Lorien, Daybreak, Sarita and Aussie Rules! Day 1, Mar 21, 122 nautical miles – We took off yesterday from Paradise Village heading towards another paradise. We were all chomping at the bit to leave (Jim most of all) but we had to have our last frappacino from Starbucks, McDonalds Happy Meal and Chinese take out lunch. After a couple of hours motoring, passing the dinghies of the regatta hosted by the Vallarta yacht club, we hoisted the sails and when we were just past Punta de Mita we turned off the engine and sailed. We had good wind with light seas. Perfect sailing weather. For dinner we had mushroom soup I had cooked the night before in anticipation of being seasick but the swells were minimal so I got to enjoy the meal as well. Our friend Lance has been sending us weather reports on our SSB email which is helping to determine which direction we have to sail. We were disappointed not to be able to hear the SSB radio net to see how many boats had left with this weather window including our friends. Overnight the sail was beautiful. 10 knots of wind with little swell. The stars were out and the lights from Puerto Vallarta grew dimmer and dimmer in the horizon behind us. Champagne sailing and the icing on the cake is that we’ve managed to tweak Ian (our Fleming wind vane) so he’s steering the boat perfectly on a beam reach, which means less work for us! Day 2 Mar 22, 140nm – Everyone except Jacintha was a little tired today but after a breakfast of chorizo omelette, mango and oranges, and naps for everyone, all is well. The fact we’re not hand steering makes a lot of difference in the exhaustion scale as well as having an extra person to take watch. Thank you Ian and Nick for being troopers. We sailed all day with all 4 sails up. A pod of dolphins swam by the boat this afternoon, jumping up and down around the bow of the boat. We also passed a couple of cargo ships and spoke to SV Kookaburra who were within VHF radio range but we didn’t see them. No bites on the fishing lines. On the SSB we found out our AIS tracker was interfering with our signal so we could communicate with the net tonight. We learnt that a bunch of boats took off the over the last few days. Day 3 Mar 23, 110nm – Today we had to head a bit more south to clear Isla Socorro. This meant that we were pointing further downwind and Ian did not like this point of sail as much. As the wind was lighter 8-10kts, it meant that there was not enough wind to steer our wind vane (he works on current and wind power). We took down the staysail and poled out the genoa which took a bit of effort. We had to hand steer a lot of the day. A flying fish visited our boat. It was tiny, about 2 inches long and had flown into the cockpit near Nick’s feet. We showed him the way back to the water. Jacintha has been super about being on the boat. She has been watching a lot of movies on the computer. High School the Musical 2 and the Lorax are her current favourites. Nick cooked pancakes this morning so she was very happy. Our batteries were running low today so we ran the generator to top them up. To conserve power we’ve turned off a lot of our electronics. This evening we instituted happy hour and had some margaritas with ice from the new freezer to celebrate. We had teriyaki chicken wings for dinner tonight. During night watch, I saw the Southern Cross low on the horizon. It’s such a comfort to me to see it and the pointers up there in the sky amongst the Milky Way. The moonless night makes the stars even brighter and I’ve been playing with Starwalk app on my ipad to show me the different constellations. Now all we have to do is bone up on our celestial navigation and dig out the sextant to find our latitude and longitude the old fashioned way. Day 4 Mar 24, 119nm – Today we passed to the South of Isla Socorro and headed more west again trying to catch the trade winds that we can see on our grib files (wind report). The winds were much lighter today and eventually we ran the motor for a couple of hours. We also made some water when the motor was running to fill up our drinking jugs. We are keeping a close eye on our fuel consumption as we only have what’s in the tanks (110 gallons left) and in our 2 jerry cans (10 gallons), so we have to be conservative. Having light winds is not fun as the boat tends to get swiped more by waves and rock and rolls sideways. Everthing swings and creaks, the sails flap and the boom rattles noisily. A bird decided to catch the bait on the fishing line trailing the boat and got it’s feet hooked. We had to pull it in and unhook it. We saw it take off after sitting in the water for a few minutes. We also took a solar shower on the deck this afternoon. It’s nice having clean hair and body and fresh clothes. Jim tried hailing any boats on the VHF but there aren’t any boats close by or they’ve turned off their radios. The SSB net at night is a social highlight for us as we find out where all the other boats are and what’s happened in their day.

[pin 4320] Our first update didnt post. I’m hoping this one will Day 5 Mar 24 Fish On!!!! Shortly after Jim;s shift started he saw a fish at the end of the line. It was a 20+lb yellowfin tuna. Of course this happens the day after we had a nice clean shower and there was blood all over Jim’s clothes and the deck of the boat. Nick miraculously didn’t get a drop of blood on him. We filleted the fish and froze half for later and ate sashimi for lunch and cracked pepper tuna steaks for dinner. It was amazingly tender and melt in your mouth and much tastier than skipjack tuna. The winds picked up today and we were on a beam reach and going fast. Way more rocky and rolly so cooking was a challenge as everything wants to roll away from me. Overnight Ian broke due to the strong wind & wave action so we’ve all got to hand steer overnight. A stainless steel bracket holding a pulley bent up (a lot of force considering this is 1/2 inch thick stainless steel). Day 6 Mar 25 We passed our 1/4 distance today! The winds slowed down today and Jim is worried that we’re going too far west so we’ve been trying hard to head more south. Today we put up our drifter sail – it’s like a large headsail but pretty like a spinnaker. It flew well in the light winds. Provisions wise the avocados and mangos are getting really ripe whilst the apples, oranges and potatoes are doing nicely. Since the winds were light, I did some clothes washing today. Mainly Jim’s blood stained clothes from yesterday and threw in some other clothes as well and set up the clothes line on the sunny side of the boat. We had tuna fried rice for lunch and leftover steaks for dinner. No more fish for a while. Overnight the wind died down to 4-5 knots and the sails were flapping and the boom banging so we turned on the motor for a few hours and headed south. We made water, charged up our batteries and turned off the engine when the wind picked up. Day 7 Mar 26 Everyone is tired as we have been hand steering for the last 2 days/nights. Also the sea has been confused which makes the boat roll up and down and side to side. The boom creaks, the sails flap and the blocks rattle whenever we get hit on the side by the waves as the wind is too light to keep the wind in the sail. It makes it difficult to sleep as well. So we’re more grumpy and irritable. We used the whisker pole on the head sail and it stopped the sail from slapping around. Jim is unhappy about our heading but we can only go where the wind takes us and maybe we should just head to Hawaii. The winds picked up steadily through the day but our heading is dead down wind and our boat doesn’t seem to want to head in that direction. Every day at 5pm we have a gathering in the cockpit for happy hour where we have a special treat and sometimes a beer or margarita. Today we had chocolate ice cream that I smuggled on board. We had cup of noodles for dinner. Day 8 Mar 27 Another tiring night of hand steering last night. Jim finally jibed and put out the mizzen sail to port and our poled out genoa to starboard on a wing on wing configuration, Ian was happy to steer the boat. Phew! We don’t have to hand steer tonight. Ian worked well, even with his dislocated shoulder in the 15-20 knot winds. The 2 cookbooks that I have found most useful is “The Boat Galley Cookbook” by Carolyn Shearlock & Jan Irons and “The Essential Galley Companion” by Amanda Swan-Neal. Today I made mango cream pie, thanks to Amanda who’s a kiwi (from New Zealand) as her book had 5 different mango recipes. As the oven was going to be on, I also made hamburger buns for our dinner tonight. It is challenging trying to cook with the rolly waves but I’m getting the hang of it. We had the mango pie for happy hour and Nick cooked up the hamburgers for dinner.