[password] pilot25041
[position] 15 27.24s 157 28.84w
[status] Monday 20th August late morning ........ and another beautiful day at sea, we have alternating clear blue skies above us and cloud with about 12kts of wind from the port rear quarter.

The gennaker that we set as we left Maupihaa, stayed set until 11am yesterday, although we did put the engine on around midnight and then raise the mainsail around 8am when the engine went off as the wind moved slightly forward, as the wind continued to move forwards we then dropped the gennnaker around 11am and set the genoa, but the port engine was started as the wind was now less than 6kts.

Just as it was getting to dusk on Saturday we took on board a passenger, quite a large bird with a long beak, black top and white underbelly, which none of us recognised ........ and no not a penguin! Anyway, we saw this bird circling us for a while, it then tried to land on the solar panels and slipped off, as we were a moving target sailing downwind at about 5kts and it was approaching in to wind, it then had another attempt and fell off the solar panels and then bounced off the dinghy, after another couple of circuits and aborted landings it then managed to land on the metal frame holding the mainsheet track. There it remained for about 15mins, before hopping across to the solar panels, all the time this was going on the wind generator is spinning its blades madly around and this bird is very close to them. The bird hitched a lift with us for the next 5hrs, until Ron thinks he disturbed it when he went outside the cockpit, the bird not even leaving us when we passed wit
hin 2nm of isle Manuae atoll around 9pm.

Since then we've had no wild life to speak of, clear blue skies, beautiful moon and star gazing, at times little or no wind ...... the wind did start to fill in around 10.30pm last night and has been with us since, it is very variable, but earlier this morning we did manage 8.5kts SOG, with the help of a little cloud cover! The wind is due to settle around 15kts from SE for the next few days according to the gribs, so hopefully the engines will only be needed to charge the batteries.

The crab meat was really nice again for dinner yesterday, accompanying new potatoes and stir fry veg!

Position. 10.00hrs FP time. 352nm to Suwarrow, 110nm 24hr run.
[speed] 6.5kts
[heading] 260M
[weather] 14knts from SE, 0.5m swell from the East, 70% cloud cover.

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