Well, Raymond seems to be out of our hair, for the time being-awesome, big relief. I twas soooooo harshing my mellow, to have to read those warnings coming in every few hours!
The predictions have him looping back to land and its not expected to come all the way out here. Good news, for us and the other boats out here who are also heading for Hawaii. I know of at least ten of us, all spread out over hundreds to thousands of miles, coming from various ports of departure in the Southern Hemisphere. As the Northern Pacific hurricane season winds to a close (hopefully Raymond will be one of the last but they can continue through November), the South Pacific cyclone season is just gearing up, so everyone who didn't head for New Zealand, is, like us, looking for safety somewhere above the equator.
We had very calm and slow night watches (so calm, it was hard to stay awake actually!), the wind continued to drop and the cloud cover thickened, so we knew we must be getting close to the doldrums. The band is pretty thin right now, and with luck, we will be through in a few days and finding those North East trade winds. By morning, it was time to furl in the head sail and kick on the engine. Jon rigged up a splint for one of his hoses (to keep it from bending when he dropped it in the tank) and then lowered it into the fuel tank and pumped out as much water as he could from where it had collected on the bottom. It didn't look too bad and we are keeping a close eye on our Rancor filter, checking it every twenty minutes at first and now we are onto every hour--Jon has to shut the engine down and drain the water, until its all gone but that's okay for us... because we have to refill our oil every ten hours anyway! It leaks something fierce--one of the many things on Jon's BIG FIX list when we are in Honolulu.
Ahhh... good Ol' Perkie, bless her heart, is actually purring along and the transmission that Jon rebuilt in the middle of nowhere, also seems to be hanging in there and our bowsprit is still up there on the bow.
Things are looking pretty good, on DAY 12!
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Lat: 05*54.53N
Long:143*03.15W
Course:340T
SOG:6.2 knots (motoring)
Thanks for the co-ords.
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