Fiji to Marshalls - Day 2-3 - Nice days and Lightning at night

Still not much wind ...

Hello!

A quick note to cover two days - in my usual time of writing last evening, we had the laptop unplugged and the small devices (VHF radio, satphone, GPS) in the oven. We were not doing some kind of strange Home Economics experiment: we use the oven as the closest thing to a Faraday Cage that we have on the boat, and we put the electronics in there when we have lightning, of which we had plenty on our second night! Thankfully, it was at a distance, and mostly downwind of us (meaning the clouds weren't coming our way) but it is disconcerting to see the entire night sky lit up every few seconds!

Watching the world go buy at 6 kts.

Both days were pretty similar: stretches of motoring interspersed with stretches of light air sailing. You can see the difference in our track when we motor and when we sail: the sailing track veers off in a wobbly line that follows the wind, while the sailing track heads straight down the rhumb line [although at the time of sending this we are actually sailing down the rhumb line at a reasonable speed].

Fish on !

The fish may have been too big ...

Victoria getting ready to fillet this little mahi mahi

The kids are settling into a routine of being on deck, playing video games, and watching movies together. It is quite cute to see Benjamin snuggled in beside Johnathan's shoulder with one ear bud each. When watching alone, Johnathan has taken to wearing the bright yellow ear defenders over the ear buds in order to hear better over the sound of the engine.

It is actually quite pleasant to be ghosting along on a calm sea at 2-5 kts :) It is a dead-end thought process to notice that we could just about walk faster than we are sailing at times, but every 25 min that we don't motor is another 1/2 gallon of diesel that we don't have to carry in a jerry can (of course, I used the 'royal we' there, as it is always Max's turn to carry the diesel, and what I meant was that it was another jerry can that he didn't have to carry!) It is a slow trip at times, and I am certainly grateful for our Perkins engine that we can flash up when the doldrums get to be a bit too much.

Love to all,
Elizabeth
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At 2018-12-19 6:40 AM (utc) SV Fluenta's position was 12°01.25'S 178°45.23'E

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