[password] kudzuu1114
[position]21 19.160s 167 42.050e
[status] Departed Tanna Island yesterday at 0830 and after clearing the coast we have been on one long, gorgeous beam reach. The first few hours we were close to the wind, but but for the last 12-14 hours the wind comes at 85 degress off the port bow. Mersoleil is loving this and we're doing 7.5 - 8.5 knots...which is now a problem. She is sailing too fast and we find that we'll arrive in the dark at the entrance to Nw Caledonis's very tricky eastside pass through the reef. We have a rule to not shoot pases in the dark this pass is not a candidate for breaking the rule. We're now pondering options which are essentially two: take down our full sails and put up our postage stamp heavy weather sail which would cut our speed quite a bit, or...approach the pass entrance, but stand off in the dark 10 miles or so and heave to. Oh well. Weather is lovely. Our freezer has mysteriously gone off line. Couldn't have happened at a better time as we emptied it pretty thoroughly before we
left Tanna Island anticipating that New Cal bio-security was going to take everything anyway.
[speed] 8.7 kts
[heading] 230 deg M
[weather] WIND: SE @ 14 kts. SWELL: SE @ 1.5 meters. BARO: 1022. TEMP:76 F. SKY: Sunny
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