Wednesday 17 July 2013

Day 18 - July 17

Last night we sailed through two large squalls.We went through two more storms again today as well. We have noticed a pattern when the storms come our way: Just before they hit it gets extremely hot, Then the storm hits with winds, waves and heavy rain,  then after it passes it leaves a nice cool breeze which pushes us right along. 

We have traveled 120 miles in the last 24 hours With the genoa sale up. We are in 10 foot swells, And are now 185 miles from Hilo, Hawaii Where the journey ends for three of us, and the other three get a well-deserved Rest before taking off again and onto Fiji. We have a contest going on for who sees the Volcano, Mauna Kea, first! We are all on High look out. We have been under full sail now for two days, and trying to reserve the fuel that we have left. If we continue on at the speed we are going, 7 to 9 knots, we should arrive Thursday night. If we arrive Thursday night, there'll be no customs personnel there to greet us, so we would rather be getting into Port on Friday morning. This means that we will slow down our speed to push our arrival back until Friday morning. We have been told that we need to drop anchor in the bay and take our rowboat into land, As the cockroaches would invade the boat if we bring it all the way into dock.

Jeni asked if any of us have jumped in the water; In answer to that, the water is treacherous. If anybody fell in at night We would never find them, and if anybody fell in the day it would take great skill to try and recover them. I think there were plans to jump in before we left on our journey, but the waters are much different than we had expected.

We've had many seagulls come and visit us, and many flying fish. We can literally watch the mahi mahi Chase the flying fish through the waters, this is what makes them "fly". (Mahi mahi, Also known as the dolphinfish, was the fish that was killed in "life of pi", and fed to Richard Parker) 

Today there was a foul smell in the salon. We went on a hunt to find the source of the smell. After coming up empty-handed, Brian finally looked in our "freezer ". As you will recall, we have had half a dozen blocks of ice in there keeping our frozen chicken and beef cold. After having the chicken tossed overboard several days ago, We assumed that the freezer was empty. As he opened the freezer, We realized that the horrendous smell was coming from the 5 gallons of bloody bacteria and salmonella infested melted ice That had been stewing for over a week. As we were all gagging and dry heaving, We threw bucket full after bucket full of the stench water over board. Brian kept us laughing with his humor and a clothespin over his nose. Quit the sight. Emptied and disinfected with Lysol, the smell had finally dissipated from the salon. 

With the majority of the "good" food gone, we will enjoy some pasta with a white sauce and ham tonight for dinner. Rick has tried to catch some fresh fish today, with no luck. We hope to catch another large fish on our way in to port to share with the family that awaits us on land.

 We are surrounded by sparkling dark blue waters as we sail into the sunset…



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