From the Blog of Family Affair

by Paul Michael, July 7th, 2014

Rhumb line distance to Lahaina, Maui =  2,268.7 nautical miles.

Yesterday, we lost our wind around 0800 and didn't make much ground with a light southeast wind.  There were 2 to 4 foot wind waves from the south to contend with upon the swells and most of the crew had their first taste of sea sickness.  Soon the winds began to match the sea state as within 5 minutes we went from light southeast wind to stronger south wind to over 15 knots.  The rain pelted us for a bit as we scrambled on deck to change headsails and get pointed toward Hawaii.

But as predicted, as evening set, the wind clocked around from the south to west and then northwest.  They aren't strong yet, but they're building.  We slipped off the continental shelf and into the vast great wilderness of the open ocean.  Many denizens were there to greet us; albatross, thousands of those jellyfish with little sails of their own, puffin, schools of tuna (no we didn't catch one yet), and a superpod with hundreds of dolphin. 

The warmer waters of the northern pacific current lifted the heavy marine layer and we are beginning to dry out.  I hope we continue that trend tomorrow as we are all very soggy.

We had a mystery noise that joined the crew around 2000.  It was an irregular but non-stop drum beating noise of low frequency through the hull that is quite loud.    We had some theories, it sounded like we'd snagged some debris.  Within seconds, our minds quickly spun to worst case scenarios of going bare poles, inspecting the hull with a GoPro cam, trying to back off the debris, or last resort, sending a tethered diver in.  In the end, it turnout out to just be a loose propane bottle in our aft lazarette.  We were glad that problem had an easy solution.

Paul Michael

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