A Big Day!!!

TIME: 2021/05/28 02:46
LATITUDE: 00-12.54N
LONGITUDE: 151-47.38W
NEXT WAYPOINT: 05N-152W
COURSE (COG): 003T
BOAT SPEED (SOG): 3.3 kn
WIND SPEED (AWS): 15 kn
WIND ANGLE (AWA): 70 degrees
SEA STATE: 0.5m E Swell

So much news to report on...don't worry, all good news!!! First we are enjoying our second day in a row of gorgeous, calm sailing. We are intentionally sailing slowly as our friend, Shaun, helping provide us with forecasting (No, we didn't fire him after the recent weather debacle!) has warned us of a band of rather unpleasant conditions further north of us. It is supposed to theoretically pass by June 3rd so we are going to bob slowly north between just 2 to 3 knots in calm conditions to hopefully avoid the worst of the winds. Although apparently we won't be able to avoid a deluge of rain that we will likely run into around June 2nd, but hopefully we avoid the worst of the wind with our current sailing strategy.

Now moving on from the whole sailing thing...the big news is that today everyone had showers!!! Yay, no more smelly people on Maple...at least for a day. Love how the little things bring me so much happiness when there is not much to break up the monotony of crossing an ocean! We cleverly showered on deck standing in buckets. Then used the water collected from our showers to do laundry by hand. Wait, does this sound like camping?? We are still trying to be very frugal with our water usage since we are down 400L of water. So far the repair on the port tank is holding but you just never know when it might let go without warning.

The other bit of big news is we are officially back in the Northern Hemisphere!! As of 12:10pm local time (22:10 UTC), we crossed the equator. We paid homage to a variety of sea gods with a shot that was a mixture of two parts Abuelo Panamanian rum (Thank you to Harry on SV Tanooki for the generous gift!!), one part maple syrup (We had to have something Canadian mixed in there, eh!), and a teaspoon of French Polynesian honey. Iris suggested adding the honey and I figured good idea to represent our two years in the South Pacific, but apparently I was wrong. The honey is to honour Aegir, the Norse deity of the ocean whose nine daughters are the nine waves. Aegir apparently in his day enjoyed brewing mead, which often included honey. So there you go. I figured I knew about Poseidon and Neptune but didn't realize this whole time we were missing honouring Aegir too. So sailors out there, don't forget Aegir the next time you need to honour the sea gods.

The conditions were finally calm enough for D to get into the port engine. Yup, the alternator is dead. We are feeling good though about our situation. Now that we are in the Northern Hemisphere the sun will pass more behind us than in front of us which it was doing in the south causing the sails to shade the solar. So this means the solar panels should actually prove to be more helpful with charging the batteries. We are also being very cautious in our use of the starboard engine when charging with it. We are optimistic we will be okay without stopping in Hawaii. Christine, please tell Mike we are sorry we will miss him in Hilo, but instead I think he should get Easy ready over the next couple of weeks and when we pass HI, he can join us and sail along side us to Alaska!! I am sure there is surfing or snowboarding or something adventurous for him to do in Alaska!! And Jollydogs, you should come too!! I am receiving optimistic news from friends and family in Canada that by September there might be some degree of normalcy which who knows might mean Canada will let you Americans back in!!!

We always love the emails we receive from those who have written, thank you!! The radio propagation with our awesome NZ station is slowly getting harder to connect to and we have not had any luck connecting with any of the stations in Hawaii with any kind of reliability yet. So I continue to not send many individual replies to minimize the volume of transmissions that need to happen when we do connect. Please know how much I love hearing your news!!!

Bradley, the Maple crew wants to send you the happiest of birthday wishes for you tomorrow!!! We are excited about your new home and look forward to hearing of you getting settled in the next month. Happy Birthday!! We love you!