Thursday 9th May 2013 Across the Date Line! Back into Wednesday.... GMT - 12hr, instead of GMT + 12hr
Mid-morning - extensive band of grey raincloud from horizon to horizon ahead - squalls a-plenty - but none too fierce. Have kept small amount of genoa unfurled - keeps us moving rather slowly in between squalls, but also means we're not way-overpowered during the squalls. Keeping nicely to a course avoiding seamounts and banks on and around our route - next one to avoid is Macaw Bank, then on to Gardner Island - part of Phoenix/Kiribati group
By afternoon, rainclouds had disappeared... until evening.... Then suddenly, as rain fell, we were speeding along, heeled over at nearly 7kt - didn't last long, before wind dropped and we were crawling at 3.5kt - but slowly things got back to normal and we were making around 5kt again. It had been a very pleasant afternoon's sail and we crossed the 180 degree Meridian at 5:06pm - into the Western hemisphere - and back a day into Wednesday! Local time is now GMT - 12hr, instead of GMT + 12hr.
I've just been testing out the weatherfax situation, having remembered that some of the Honolulu weatherfaxes were relevant to this area, now we're N of 20S. Both the dedicated weastherfax machine and the laptop are receiving rather blurred faxes - but I'll check again in the morning when propagation might be better. At least the laptop is giving sensible faxes instead of the garbage it had been giving recently - it seems to have self-corrected - maybe due to a hard switching off and re-booting, instead of it always being put into 'sleep' mode?
Without any clouds overhead, it's another beautiful dark starry night. Tomorrow there should be an annular eclipse of the sun around midday - the moon is too far away for a full eclipse - a 'ring of fire' instead... Will have to be careful not to look directly.... Will be up by dawn to look again for that Space Station... around 1654GMT - nearly 5am LT.
D.M.G. over 24hr to Thurs 9th May 1100 NZT : 115 n.ml. Sydney: 2036 n.ml. (225T); New Zealand's North Cape: 1396 n.ml. (194T); Vanua Levu (Fiji): 250 n.ml. (176T); W. Samoa:446 n.ml. (103T).
Distance to Strait of Juan de Fuca entrance (Thurs 9 May 2300Z): 4666 n.ml.
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For my positions and track, see:
www.svnereida.com - 'Travels' - "Where is 'Nereida'?"
and/or:
http://www.exactearth.com/media-centre/recent-ship-tracks/tracking-nereida/