Passage and Mid Passage Beach Party Photos

Although we have been in Vanuatu since May I have not taken the time to seek out sufficient internet bandwidth or, more importantly, sift through the thousands of pictures we have taken ...    So, here comes a series of photo blog posts.

This post is the pictures sailing from the Marshall Islands to Tikopia in the Solomons.  Liz wrote about the passage in this  previous post as well as in a post on our mid passage beach party.

Welcome back to the Southern Hemisphere.  Note the wind heading over 30 kts from its previous more sedate 12 kts.  On the screen you can our latitude is 0 00.002'N (approximately12 feet north of the Equator) and we have a mere 975nm to go.  You can see on the chart page we have headed off downwind to relieve the loads on the boat and to make it more comfortable as this is just a squall

As a former glider pilot and, now, a sailor, I spend a fair amount time looking at clouds but what is this one ?  Pretzel cloud ?

More squalls

Loving our rain enclosure ...

Kind of hard to go around this one.

And some rain

But the wind and current are helping us along our way.  Reefed well down and making pretty good time.

Is the US nuking the Marshall Is again ?  Nope, just some more squalls at sunset.

and what to do on passage when not on watch. Victoria trying to avoid the sun and do her math.

Minecraft with Benjamin

and, of course, catching rain water is a good way to pass the time if you are three.

and then the wind stopped ...

So ... time for a party.  No worry about hitting the bottom as I think it was about 8000' deep or so.

SWIMEX !Yes, we did keep one adult onboard at all times to ensure Fluenta did not decide to leave the party.

Johnathan Diving

Even time to sit and read a book (out of the sun).