Perfection

So we just had to wait until night #5 for the perfect sail. Last night was a fabulous sail with more wind than was forecasted at a perfect angle for Maple to just fly. We turned more south to come past Ahe and Rangiroa in the Tuamotus and we thought it would be a slow sail but instead we were able to bomb along at an average of 6 knots, it was fabulous. Today the wind has slowed and we managed to finally break out the spinnaker. I don't believe we have used the spinnaker once since entering the Pacific or if we have it was once for a very brief spell. Needless to say we were very rusty in getting it hauled up. Many false starts with wrapped lines, lines on the wrong side of the stanchions and even managed to initially haul the spinnaker up on the wrong side of the head sail. Let's just say there were some tense moments between captain and first mate. Here's hoping bringing it back down is less exciting. We have already accumulated enough stories of how-not-to-douse-a-spinnaker, I am not interested in adding to that library.

It has been a very chill day with the sun still shining. I believe we have managed around 36 hours of no rain. On the SSB radio net last night, someone who is currently anchored in Tahiti managed to collect 600L of water with all the squalls that hit them there. So now I feel vindicated that I can in fact substantiate my sailing story of all the squalls rivaling our tropical storm in Grenada as we only collected a mere 500L of water during that storm. It was not so easy for us to collect the rain this time around while underway so we only managed to add 100L of water during the squalls on this passage, but not too shabby I say.

We are on track for a morning arrival on the 4th. Unfortunately tonight is forecasted to be very calm so likely we will be motoring as we are opting to not fly the spinnaker at night given some recent history with squalls and a torn sail. We don't much feel like adding more sail repair to our to-do list.

The sun is shining

What a difference a day makes!! The ocean wasn't trying to kill us, the boat didn't break and the bugs were not invading. Darryl's shift until midnight was unbelievably wet, but the squalls have left us alone since then. It was blessedly calm and beautiful all day today. We had a wonderful day of sailing in glorious sunshine and decent winds all day. We are trying to be cautiously optimistic that night #5 will be gentle and dry.

Tonight we will start wending our way through some of the atolls of the Tuamotus so will need to be more vigilant with our watches as up until now we have been out here all alone with no obstacles. Goal is to arrive in Tahiti by February 4th so just 3 more sleeps hopefully.