Hi from Andrew Monday 18th May
Hi Everybody,
Well everything is going well on Eye Candy.
We continue to have good Trade winds from the SE in the 10 to 20 knot range. The seas have calmed down a little and we are left with the 1 to 2m wind waves.
Today marks the half way point from Galapagos to the Marquesan Islands. We are 1500 miles from the nearest land and this is the farthest from land you can be on the earths surface. It has taken us almost exactly 9 days to get here. That means an average of 168 miles a day at an average speed of exactly 7 knots. Quite an achievement for a little 39 foot production sailboat. However we have been helped with a bit of ocean current along the way. We put up our reaching spinnaker yesterday for about 10 hours and saw the speedo reach 9 knots with much time over 8 knots in a light SE breeze.
We also caught a small tuna and we have already seen to half of it with the other half tonight.
So with half way being reached the captain had a shave and a hair cut and a "shower day" was declared :) to clean up the mess.
Our radio nets continue to occupy me several hours a day with position reports from other yachts and yesterday I was able to arrange a "phone patch" from Eye Candy to my Dad in Hobart which was fantastic to be able to do from out here. It felt a bit like being on "24" and I dont think Jack Bower could do that! We have Fred at his Ham radio station, W3ZU in Florida, to thank for that being possible. I had previously called Matthew for his birthday a few days earlier.
We are using one radio net in the morning and two in the evening plus our Delorme satellite tracker sending position reports every 4 hours so we should be found if the need arises.
Bye for now
Andrew and the resting Clare
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