Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

322nm to go to Marsden Cove. All is well aboard.

Another t-shirt day. In fact, when inside I had to take even that off, it was too warm. Is this really the same patch of ocean we’ve traveled twice before?

And we’ve made some good progress. On the morning net we heard the boats 60nm south of us were in light air and motoring. They’d run into the high which we’d been trying to avoid. In fact, it was my primary reason for leaving on Sunday and not earlier as this was a likelihood. Through a combination of luck and judgment the wind was lightish throughout the day but by the time we reached that latitude we had good wind. In fact, overnight we’ve made very good progress. The wind has shifted some 30 degrees but stayed stronger than forecast. If we keep this up we’ll be in early Sunday morning although I strongly suspect it’ll be late Sunday. We’ll see. Aboard time for arrival is defined not in terms of days but numbers of night watches left – nobody likes them.

We had some other good luck too. During Lissa’s morning watch we caught a fish. Lissa reeled it in. It was a smallish skipjack tuna on a lure where I’d fashioned a double hook. One of the hooks had torn it’s throat out so it looked a little beat up. Later, we found some deck catch – a squid. The squid took it’s turn on the hook and by the end of day we caught another fish. Lissa again reeled it in and again it was a skipjack, smaller than the first. Neither were kept.

Overnight we had another clear sky. I spent a while on my back on the roof of the cabin watching shooting stars. The Magallenic Clouds were clearly visible ahead of us, showing us the way to New Zealand.

One thing I forgot to mention in yesterdays blog was that I’ve also made some progress making short term fixes to the runners for our sliding door. Both had broken plastic flanges which served to hold the door in its groove. Not the sort of thing that can easily be glued back together and really needing full replacement. However, I discovered a French Polynesian 2 franc coin was just the right size and width to glue onto the side and create some structure to hold the plastic together. Unfortunately we only had one. In the end the second runner was fixed by cutting a similar sized shape from one of Helen’s old store cards – glad we kept them.

Day 2 is usually the day the crew fall into the groove of ocean sailing and true to form, that began to happen aboard Dignity. Until now we were all on a watch/eat/sleep cycle. On day 2, we all managed to stay awake during our off-watch periods. This also meant we were able to chat and enjoy each others company for the first time of the passage.

After dodging through the small line of squalls the previous morning the weather has remained good to us. The wind has shifted and we’ve begun claw back the distance we lost against the rhumb line. By making our way to the east we will reduce the effect of some swell coming up the west of New Zealand which we’ll encounter on Friday probably. It does mean that when the winds move more to the north around the same time we’ll have a less favourable sailing angle. At this point I’m choosing comfort over speed. That being said, it looks like we may be able to sail all the way in and arrive some time on Sunday.

It is becoming noticably colder but that’s a relative thing. The minimum overnight temperature is still over 20C but we do have to put a few layers on at night. During the day, so far, it’s remained tee-shirt weather which has surprised me as I thought it would get colder sooner than this. The sea temperature is down about 8C so we can expect colder weather soon.

Out in the ocean the days rapidly blend and are only distinguished by a few details. Yesterday we were visited by a sea gull that circled us for some time and was later joined by a second. Later in the day, when the sea was fairly calm, the smashed microwave was consigned to the deep. After sunset Mercury accompanied Venus setting in the western sky while Jupiter rose in the west. It is a new moon right now so the only light at night is us and the stars. With just a few clouds in the sky the sea and horizon are visible in the faint starlight.

As I type the sun has just poked over the horizon. A new day begins.