Good Friday: 30th March 2018 Happy Easter/Passover!
Wind was from well astern ('abaft the beam'!) overnight and speed dropped to 1.5-2 knots (engine was used to give better speed for a time). With frequent collapsing and filling of mainsail in 1.5m/4-5ft swell almost on the beam, it was noisy!
Fortunately, the wind later came up a touch so boatspeed got up to 3 kt or so - better!
This morning, the asymmetric spinnaker was raised and the main furled in (this boat has in-mast furling making that simple) - suddenly things got a lot more peaceful and smoother - the swell has died down a lot compared with our first 2-3 days, so that's helping.
As usual, the night was gorgeous in the calm conditions - full moonlight dancing on the waves and the Southern Cross in good view off to port, with Orion and Sirius ahead. There's a bright planet overhead - Saturn or Jupiter?? Venus is bright in the W just after sunset.
Battery power continues to be an ongoing problem - that's where 'Nereida' is set up so much better than 'Epiphany' for long passages: Hydrovane wind-steering (no battery power needed!), Superwind wind generator (giving power input overnight, when solar power input clearly isn't happening), no freezer, rare use of fridge (mostly a 'dry locker') and very rare use of mechanical/electronic autopilot (a big drain on battery power).
Skipper George is really regretting not having wind-steering on his boat! Just to keep up with present power needs, we're needing to run the engine twice a day for a good hour each time to charge the batteries. Radio use continues to be minimal - restricted to weather info and two evening Nets. None of my usual regular chats with ham radio friends in the mornings - I'm really missing that!
Having downloaded new weather files, it looks as though the present pleasant conditions will continue for several days... nice! The only slight worry is the chance of squalls - but, so far, no sign of any big clouds - long may that continue!
If you want to send an email, use the Contact page on my website - otherwise, you might need //WL2K as the subject line to overcome the Winlink 'spam filter' - there's no Facebook etc out here so (brief!) 'newsy' emails will be very welcome!