Hope my friends in B.C. are having a good long weekend holiday, to celebrate B.C. Day on Monday!
Saturday 11:30am Tahiti/Hawaii time (Sat 2130GMT) Wind up ... a band of rainshowers and raincloud ahead, to port and to starboard - right across our path! Furled in some genoa to keep our speed down to below the 6kt I'd been seeing. With TS Flossie still approaching, don't want to get ahead of it - want it to pass ahead of us instead, so need to keep speed down for that reason.
11:45am Well, speed came down - too much ... Light rain and plenty of grey cloud overhead and wind has backed, so very hard on wind now - part reason why speed has dropped so much Came off the wind a touch but now it has died down even more in light rain, so speed still low - windgen only just spinning.
1pm Wind has veered to SE quadrant and still very light - 5kt or less - Superwind not turning at all. Full genoa again but not doing very much and edge of light grey cloud ahead, dark grey cloud well astern, decks wet everywhere, hardly moving. Flossie must be NE now but a good distance away. Suspect we'll be in light winds now for maybe a day or more - until Flossie passes due N of us, when wind will be from S - that is supposed to be on Monday. If I'd realised we were going to be so slow now, I'd have left the genoa fully unfurled earlier and enjoyed some speed for a time!
Feeling famished - time for a tuna lunch.
1:45pm Heavy rain again but still little wind. Grey cloud has spread overhead and blue sky ahead at edge of cloud has vanished from sight.
2:45pm Creeping along at 2kt or less in very little wind - just about holding our course. Just looked at latest forecast - Tropical Depression 8-E, at 15N 123W, is now following behind TS Flossie... Hope that doesn't cause us any problems...
2:50pm Just finished a very enjoyable ham radio session on the Hawaiian Afternoon Net - all islands represented and there were several people I've spoken to before now. I had excellent copy on everyone and was made to feel very welcome - thank you all for that! Disappointing that I shan't be able to meet with some of you by stopping - one of the drawbacks of a nonstop voyage is not being able to meet face to face with any of the many radio contacts I've made... Not just now, for sure.
We're still crawling along in very light wind from ENE at around 2kt...
Forecast on Tropical Depression 8-E, now named Gil, received later:
TROPICAL STORM GIL NEAR 15.0N 122.4W 1006 MB AT 2100 UTC AUG 03 MOVING WNW OR 285 DEG AT 10 KT. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS 35 KT GUSTS 45 KT.
24 HOUR FORECAST TROPICAL STORM GIL NEAR 15.5N 125.6W. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS 35 KT GUSTS 45 KT.
48 HOUR FORECAST TROPICAL DEPRESSION GIL NEAR 15.5N 129.2W. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS 30 KT GUSTS 40 KT.
72 HOUR FORECAST DISSIPATED..... Good news!
Midnight Sky fairly clear - brighter stars visible everywhere. Still only light winds, as expected ... making N-NNW. Winds expected to continue, even lighter possibly, over next 24hr, becoming northerly before swinging to southerly near end of period, finally becoming E.
Sunday 3:10am Just had to gybe around with wind more from NNE, possibly. Now heading NW for a time - will either have to heave to or head ESE if necessary, to avoid getting too far W.
6:50am Bright, sunny, calm day - mostly blue sky with just a few cumulus around - 10% maybe. Saw a bird flying close to sea - like a pair I saw yesterday - but not seeing well enough to get details - possibly a petrel, definitely not a booby, frigate, albatross or storm petrel! White below, long, dark upper wings, head marked with dark markings on white - maybe black cap, collar and/or breast... Tried to take photos yesterday but just too far away. Must keep camera handy...
Changed course, after gybing around - had an alarm set to wake me to make sure we avoided getting too far W. Took a time, in light N-NNE wind of around 10kt, to adjust course - now making ENE-E (080T) at around 2kt.
Back to bunk for a little more sleep before Polynesian Magellan Net at 8am - twice-daily SSB check-in and enjoyable chats with the cruisers on that Net. Sometimes manage still to chat also with the SoPacNet in Fiji area but usually propagation is far better in evenings - getting difficult to make contact on 6MHz now I'm so much further away. A lot of familiar boat names and friendly people after several weeks of chatting on the two Nets.
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North (Queensland) ABC (Cairns) interview went out on air Thursday morning and a link will be posted once available.
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While sailing around the world, I'm trying to raise funds to help support the superb life-saving work done by the RNLI (Lifeboats) in Britain each and every day of the year, regardless how bad the weather. In fact, the worse it is, the more likely they are out there, helping someone in distress - whether a swimmer, surfer, small boat or big ship, night or day, summer or winter, and it is a charity - no government funding - so they rely on our help to fund their intensive training and maintain their equipment.
It would be great if you would take a moment to click on the Lifeboats link here (https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Jeanne-Socrates2), if you'd like to show your support for my efforts at sailing solo, nonstop, unassisted around the globe, trying to set a World Record as the oldest person to do so, by donating something towards the great work the RNLI do every day. If a lot of people put in even a small amount, it all adds up... Thanks a lot! If you can help, it will be very much appreciated. Let's see if we can reach my target!
(I hear that some readers might need to talk to their bank BEFORE trying to make a donation to the RNLI since many US banks routinely block foreign transactions unless
they are notified in advance.)
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1900GMT (= 9 a.m. LT = Tahiti/Hawaii time) - end of Day 305. We made 61 n.ml. DMG, measured in a straight line between the two 1900GMT positions.
Total distance covered from Victoria, B.C., to end of Day 305 (by daily DMGs): 25,091 n.ml.
Distances (at 1700GMT): Cape Flattery LH: 2344 n.ml. to NNE; Honolulu: 497 n.ml. to NW; East Cape, N.Z.: 3639 n.ml. to SW; Papeete, Tahiti: 2010 n.ml. to S; Cabo San Lucas, Mexico: 2366 n.ml. to ENE; San Francisco GG: 2008 n.ml. to NE.
Position, as posted to www.Winlink.org and www.Shiptrak.org (using my US callsign KC2IOV):
TIME: 2019/08/04 19:00GMT LATITUDE: 15-54.58N LONGITUDE: 151-15.95W
COURSE: 071T SPEED: 2.1kt
WIND_SPEED: 10kt WIND_DIR: NNE SWELL_DIR: NE SWELL_HT: 2.0m CLOUDS: 10%
BARO: 1014.6hPa TREND: 2 AIR_TEMP: 30.0C SEA_TEMP: 35.0C
COMMENT: TS Flossie passing to NNE - light winds, dying more;