Position: 30 degrees, 40 minutes south; 179 degrees, 19 minutes east

Those old enough to remember the comic strip; “Peanuts” will recall that when Charlie Brown went out ice skating in the winter, his mother would make him wear so many layers he couldn’t move. Inevitably he’d just tip over on the ice and lay there unable to right himself, trapped by all his layers.

Well that’s how we feel leaving New Zealand’s winter and heading north to the promise of warm tropical waters. Well, it hasn’t warmed much yet so we’re still wearing almost all the layers we have in order to keep warm at night when on watch.

Right now I’m sitting in the cockpit on “dawn patrol” and like Charlie Brown I’m afraid to move lest I tip over. Sea boots with wool socks, pants, bib overalls (heavy Gore-Tex with Cordura), a thermal long sleeve undershirt with zip neck, heavy pile parka with zip neck, Gore-Tex foul weather jacket (with a collar that goes over my head and contains the hood), a heavy pile neck gaiter, wool watchcap and all topped by my PFD (inflatable life-jacket), with built in harness and a six foot long tether that I hook in while working outside the cockpit. Ann wears the equivalent plus she’s been adding long johns. (The scary part is other than our socks, we haven’t changed since leaving New Zealand as these layers are the ONLY cold weather layers we have. Let’s hope for warmer weather soon. Very soon.)

Now, let’s see, did I miss anything? Oh yeah, don’t forget the lightweight wool glove liners I have on (my heavy Gore-Tex gloves are under the dodger but not yet needed) and a headlamp.

Whew! Just getting up to make a cup of tea expends about 500 calories trying to move with all that stuff on. Fortunately it’s a bit warmer during the day, but we’re both looking forward to the part of the trip where we switch to shorts, tee-shirts and flip flops.

My other issue of the moment is a big, fat lip from whacking myself in the face with the winch handle! I was up at the mast putting in a double reef, as the wind had jumped up. This requires (among other steps) winching the reef line tight to stretch the bottom of the sail. Well, the piece of stinking excrement West Marine winch handle didn’t lock as it should and as I pulled with all my might on the winch, it slipped out and whacked me good. I could easily have broken a tooth or worse, so I grudgingly consider a swollen and abraded lip “lucky”.

By the way, on another subject – for anyone who might actually be plotting our course and wondering; “what the hell are they thinking” as you look at our course take a look at the GRIB files as well. We’re going quite a bit east of the rhumb line for two reasons. One – the winds where we are at present only allow us to go that direction (or on the other tack, maybe head for New Caledonia) and Two – southeast trades winds are forecast to fill in in a day or two and we don’t want to be too far to the west when they kick in or we have a very hard time getting to Fiji. Our hope is in a day or so we make a (approx.) 30 degree left turn, catch the trades and ride blissfully downwind all the way. At least that’s the plan. Mother Nature usually throws a curve so keep a watch to see if it works!