Sunday Island Day 17

Galapagos to Marquesas

We had some nice down wind sailing yesterday afternoon, and hooked a large 10kg tuna in the late afternoon again turning the cockpit into a blood bath. The freezer is well stacked, but a couple of Mahi Mahi would be nice to add to our latest provisions.

Wind became lighter overnight, and by mid morning had dropped to 8kts, and our boat speed dropped below 4kts so we put the engine on and have been motor sailing towards Hiva Oa ever since. Listening to the ARC radio sked this morning we are not alone, and most boats reported only 8-10kts of wind. The ITCZ has made it all the way down to 10*S, and water temperature is a staggering 30.4*C!

This morning we washed the deck with salt water, also throwing nice refreshing buckets of sea water at each other to cool off. It is nice to get the flying fish scales and remains of squid off the deck. It has amazed me how dirty the deck has got mid ocean. We are not the only ones as this was also a topic of conversation on ARC radio network that we pirate twice a day. After the sea wash we gave Sunday Island a refreshing fresh water wipe down, then I transferred 60L of fuel from our jerry cans into the main fuel tank for the long motor to Hiva Oa.

With the calmer weather the kids have got their leggo collection out and the saloon has been transformed into Lego land aqua world, of course the penguins are allowed to be part of the game even though they dwarf the lego men.