Mid-day, 20-16s/141-46w
The Picton Castle is about 400 miles NE of Manga Reva sailing along in strong NNEly winds. Seas are moderate and not too lumpy. The ship is shortened down to upper topsails and still we>are making a comfortable and swift steady 7-8 knots. I suppose that we can expect the breeze to die down soon enough as NEly winds we are getting are the normal easterly trades being bent and accelerated around a low to our south I think. Soon I expect the winds to lay down some and go back more into the east. Meantime we are sailing along just fine. As we get further north on this heading the weather is also getting warmer. Rebecca and her sailmaking gang laid out a new royal on the dock at Rikitea which they are hand seaming up now and the 5-6 year old fore-t’gallant got a rip in the clew last night so that sail is sent down for fixing – don’t need or want it set now anyway in this breeze. If we were further off the wind we would be happy to have it set.
All around is the Pacific is a deep rich blue and covered with white caps – the ship is easy to stear under this sail combination and she is romping along. If anyone is interested in what weather we have or what might be coming our way you can check out www.passageweather.com for ocean routing weather forecasts or www.weather-forecast.com for island forecasts. There are of course, many other weather forecasting sites but these two are simple and clear and do not require any interpretation or training to grasp.