Day 186, Year 2: Fifth Day of Passage to Aussie Land
Date: Saturday, October 27, 2007
Weather: Rain Showers Early, Otherwise Sunny; Winds NNW 10 Knots
Latitude: S 23 degrees 51.814 minutes
Longitude: E 155 degrees 48.619 minutes
Location: On Passage to Australia
Miles to Go: 201

While celebrating our 33rd wedding anniversary today, we managed to steam up the engine room. No worries, however. There was no connection between the two events. The big excitement for the day was mid-afternoon when I walked back to the aft cabin and found water on the floor which looked like it was coming from the engine room. My first thought was that engine room must be full of water and that we might be sinking. I quickly opened the engine room door and found water dripping from everything.
I didn’t know what the problem was but I did know we weren’t taking on water. There was just a salt water spray going everywhere. I called Mark and after a little detective work he discovered that the cause was a missing hose clamp on the mixing elbow going into the exhaust system. This means that water that should have been going out through the exhaust hose was just spraying all over. The hose clamp had probably corroded and broken loose. Mark quickly found a new one and put it on the hose
and all was well again. Whew!

Last night was interesting. After sailing wing and wing for over 36 hours, we started getting fairly heavy winds and had to change the sail configuration. We sailed all night with a double-reefed headsail and full main. We had a steady 18 to 22 knots with gusts to 25, but the wind was behind us so it was no problem. Ross on New Dawn called us in the middle of the night to warn of the high winds in front of us, but we were already in the middle of them. He thought we were further behind than
we were, but we appreciated the call. We also had a positive current during all of this, so we were having a good run. But as morning approached and the full moon set and the sun came up, the winds started to die down and move to the northwest. This put them in front of us, so after four beautiful days of sailing, we had to start the engine. We have been motor sailing all day against head winds, but now as the sun is setting, the winds have gone back to the north which puts us on the beam reach.
The winds are light so we will continue to motor, but at least we are not fighting those head winds. If things stay as they are now, we will arrive in Bundy on Monday, but if the headwinds come back, we might be delayed and arrive on Tuesday. The only boat we can see at this time is Scot Free II. They too are hoping for a Monday arrival, but we shall see.

Last note . . . I got word via email early this morning that the Red Sox won game two in the World Series. Thanks to all who sent the score.