I was going to open with what good progress we had made, and therefore the unexpectedly small number of miles left to run. However, it was discussed the other day that it seems like a negative attitude to be continually counting down the miles until we get somewhere, as it implies that we’re looking forward to the passage finishing, which shouldn’t be true. I shall now only say that we have done over 1,100nm since leaving San Diego, and we have an unquantified number of exciting miles still to go until the nearest Hawaiian island.
Yesterday saw the wind consistently ease to the extent that we changed up the headsail to the yankee 2. Still not exactly racing, but a comfortable configuration to keep the speed up. The old sail was bagged up and down below in no time, light work for four people. I’m not sure the same will be said for the significantly larger genoa, but we’ll deal with that fun as and when it comes to it.
The rest of day ticked along nicely, the biggest event being the rescue of a bright yellow fishing buoy that we spotted floating on past us, en route to America. After spinning the boat around, chasing it down, heaving too, and drifting down onto it, we retrieved it aboard after a couple of attempts, there being nothing to hook on to, the eventual method being to hang off the side of the boat with feet wrapped around a stanchion, and a big two handed grab. The three small resident crabs living on it were dispatched to the blue for new adventures, and we now have a shiny yellow plastic buoy; one less bit of debris in the ocean, and a new anchor marker/trip line float for Disco I think.
Nights are currently a mix of good breeze, interspersed with numerous squalls, and the lulls that accompany them. None of them so far seem to pack much of a punch, just showers, but we go from fresh breeze and 8kts of progress, to lolling around doing 4kts, all within 5 minutes. The biggest annoyance of these, other than interrupting the good sailing of course, is the dark clouds obliterating an otherwise stunning canopy of stars. Those of us that have been on Disco previously or done ocean passages before have all seen our fair share of stars, but the current set are really quite something. My new planisphere for mapping out the night sky at a given time is getting good use, but there’s lots of learn I think. Should keep us all occupied for a while.
The big result of last night was finally getting to see the latest Star Wars film, Rogue One. This has roots way back when we were preparing Disco in Lymington, and I remember Alex and Moris both desperately trying to make it to Southampton to watch it when it first came out before we set sail. They were unsuccessful, and attempts in Gran Canaria and Antigua were equally futile. Well, last night Ty and I finally got around to watching it, 12,000nm after we first planned to last December. Finally we can relax and enjoy the sailing…
NAV STATION
Date: 20th May 2017
Time: 2249z
Position: 26°52.3N 134°57.5W
COG: 260°T
SOG: 7kts
Wind: NE 3-4
Swell: ENE 2-3ft
Sky: 7/8 cumulus
Weather: Fair during the day, with a lot of relatively tame squalls/showers at night.
With the support of our partner Weather Routing Inc.
Follow the progress of Discoverer day by day on our live tracker
