[password] pilot25041
[position] 31 41.6s 176 53.0e
[status] Saturday 20th October late morning & we're still heading south with all haste, in fact this blog could quite easily be 'ditto yesterday', although over the last hour our progress has slowed to around 6kts! We have continued our excellent progress and speed, completing 200nm in around 25hrs 35mins up to 8am this morning, nearly 8kt average and by far the best sailing conditions and progress for any leg on the whole trip!

So what do we report ..... well for dinner last night Anahera & Tony made a huge quiche in the large roasting tray, which went down very well! Overnight the house bank battery voltage dropped to 21.4v, cue Barry & multi-meter to main saloon ...... yes another one of the 'old' 6v batteries has failed, so once Allan could 'manually drive' and everything could be shut down we're now back to half a house bank of power ..... although on the positive side(no pun intended) this is from the 'new' batteries purchased in Papeete. The cockpit wind instrument continues to work, although occasionally gives a flicker and stopped working periodically during the night!

Apart from a bit of sail trimming and that's only very occasionally, nothing much else to report, apart from the latest gribs showing we have no wind? ......... well only about 12kts speeding us along on a beautiful beam reach! & its getting cold at night, Barry & Allan feeling it worse than the other crew members who have just had a NZ winter, so extra layers needed!

Fabulous night skies, Ron saw 3 shooting stars last night, the moon is getting bigger too, today beautiful sunrise, clear blue sky and sun warming our day, seas fairly flat, so again ideal sailing conditions!

Position 11.00nzt. 24hr run 183nm. DTG 279nm.

[END]