On passage again.

Hello,

A quick little update over HF; wifi is now a distant memory.

We had a two-day celebration for Victoria's birthday - all onboard with "just us", as she wanted it. She made her own pinata and cake. Dinner was mac & cheese ("just the way Grammy makes it, please Mom"), and we watched part of a Harry Potter movie (the rest will follow in Suwarrow, because it was too late at night ... even for an 11 year old).

We motored over to the other village on Saturday, where the customs man came to the boat to do our paperwork, then we went through the pass at what was supposed to be slack tide, but we had 3 kts of current against us! Those are always white-knuckle moments, but we made it through safely. We anchored overnight (Sat/Sun) outside the lagoon (where we started, three weeks ago), and spent most of today stowing and lashing for sea.

We left our anchorage at about 5:30 pm, just in time to eat a quick dinner underway before sunset (canned beans, biscuits, and home made ginger cookies). We went into watches straight away.

The winds have been funny - forecast for 13-15 kts (ie perfect), we have had anywhere from 8 kts to 22 kts! [Seas forecast to be 3-4 m which seems about right] We have steady wind at about 19 kts now. The autopilot is doing well (using both wind hold and wind-nav modes, depending on the conditions). We have already had one watch change - I slept just after sunset, and now Max is off-watch. We generally do short watches the first day to get back into our groove, then they naturally lengthen as we get going. With a boat speed hovering around 7 kts (even more than 2 reefs in both sails), we already have less than 350 nm to go :)

Love to all,

Elizabeth
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At 9/30/2014 2:03 AM (utc) Fluenta's position was 10°28.00'S 159°57.30'W

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