June 2, 2008
0300 UTC (3:00 P.M. in New Zealand)
Position: S 25 degrees 2 minutes West 179 degrees 15 minutes
Heading 10 degrees at 6-7 knots
100 miles to Minerva
Yep, if you have been looking at our longitudes and latitudes over
the past week you will see that we have passed from the eastern
hemisphere to the western – crossing the date line last night at
10:30 P.M. ( so I guess it suddenly became yesterday). We will
only be in the western hemisphere for a few days while we are at
Minerva and then when we head back west a bit we will cross back
into the eastern hemisphere and our longitudes will show “east”
again. I am sure you are waiting with baited breath for that big
excitement!
We have had another good 24 hours of sailing – with the winds
picking up and gusting strongly for extended periods at speeds of
20-24 knots at times. The seas are rougher today than they were
the past 5, but still not bad at all. Sun is out again today and
it is definitely feeling warm and almost tropical.
Last night I was listening to one of our audiobooks (a fantastic
addition for our night watches) – and made the mistake of
listening to “The Life of Pi”. I had read the book a few years
ago and loved it. I had forgotten however, that it is all about
shipwrecks and storms and sharks (not to mention hyenas and
tigers) and it got me totally freaked out. Couldn’t even sleep
afterwards. I was pretty convinced I was not going to be attacked
by a tiger, but otherwise, it seemed a little too realistic to me.
All is well. Should be arriving at North Minerva Reef (look it up
on Wikipedia) tomorrow early morning. We anticipate having a fun
reunion with Michael and Britta. We are bringing them lots of
fresh fruit and vegies as they have been there for 2 weeks already
and are all out of that kind of stuff.
L.