Picture: yesterday, Mia got 9 months old on the 16th of August, – probably youngest kid sailing the NWP.
Meret reports:
For the last few days with the light winds it felt like we weren’t covering much distance at all. Then Dario told us there were strong winds of 30 knots forecasted for early yesterday morning. But light winds prevailed and we even set our genaker. Last night we decided to play it safe just incase and took in the genoa. With our course dead downwind, we put out the spinnaker pole to butterfly wing with the gib.
It has started to getting darker at night again and the moon was visible for the first time since we left Dutch Harbor. Just before watch changeover at 4am the wind strong winds hit. With the stronger wind came higher waves and helming became more challenging. The one thing you want to avoid at all costs is an accidental jibe. In order, to still hold the course with the waves pushing you off course you have to attempt to read the waves as best possible ahead of time. Last night, this seemed to work for a couple of waves but then one would come from another direction or sooner than you expected and the boat would instantly veer 20 degrees off the ideal course. After two hours of helming you are pretty exhausted.
The strong wind and waves from behind have been pushing us rapidly forward and we finally feel like we are making some headway.
In the morning Meret and Sabine saw a whole group of Parasitic jaegers. Soon after the sun came out for the first time in since we left Herschel. So the school break was held clipped on to the lifeline on the foredeck lying in the sun.
Since we are in a relatively narrow channel between Victoria Island and islands of the Duke of York Archipelago we can see land on both side, or at least in turn, as we tack up and down between the islands and shallows. There was one shallow point of 2 meters, which with 1.5 meter high waves, would not have been kind to our keel, so for obvious reasons we avoided it!
The wind is forecasted to die down tomorrow. – The max speed today surfing down a wave was 11.8 knots!
