[password] pilot25041
[position] 25 21.13s. 146 12.53w
[status] just after the amazing sunset last night we felt there was enough wind to sail, and after setting our sails and turning of the engine we were quite happily trundling along at 5kts, however, our joy was short lived as gradually the breeze died over the coming hours until eventually at 2.30am it was back on with the engine. After a rather slow night, sunrise at 6am was as equally spectacular as the previous sunset, but we still had a glassy sea.
A few zephyrs of wind came and went through the morning until 11am when we seemed to have a steady 5kts from the stbd rear quarter ........ "Gennaker time" was the call from the Skipper. We raised the big red, white and blue sail at the front and have been quite happily sailing along at 3-4.5kts in peace and quiet since then! In fact we have had a multitude of coloured sails hoisted today in different positions around the boat ?? ah, they're not sails ......... we've just been washing and drying all our bedding!

The fishing lines have been deployed again since first light, but again those pesky fish are proving to be too elusive for us.

On a good note ...... we have managed to fix one of our big snags ...... the water maker is running again in auto mode! We managed to talk to James from EnertecMarine this morning, who was again extremely helpful, he confirmed our diagnosis and remedial action to date, however, he told us that the Roto flowmeters are very reliable and it was more likely to be a wiring issue ..... so back down into the rear lazerette and closer inspection of the wiring, this initially didn't show anything, but when pulling with increasing pressure on the very thin wires where they are crimped to other bigger wires the thin 'red' began to "stretch" ...... replacing the inline crimp was all it took to get us back up and running fine ........ if only alternators & auto pilots were that easy to fix!! So a huge thanks to James for his wise advice!

If the wind continues to be good to us, we should hopefully be in Rapa tomorrow, the "gribs" from Predict Wind have so far been fairly accurate and shows the wind gradually increasing in strength from the west, which is ideal to propel us south eastwards to our destination!

Position 15.00 nzst. DTG 169nm.
[speed] 4.5kts
[heading] 125T
[weather] 8kts SW wind, flat swell, variable cloud cover.

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