Pumice on the water (this pic is actually the day before when there was little wind for a while)

Position: 25 degrees, 24 minutes south; 179 degrees, 14 minutes EAST

We’ve crossed the official date line of 180 degrees longitude. We’re now on the east side of the line versus the west side. Now today is officially your tomorrow even though Tonga has already designated they are in the east side time zone.

So…lumpy, bumpy. That’s the gist of the day. Last night was a nice ride but this morning the wind picked up around 0400 and built into the 20’s. In SF Bay that’s not a big deal, but out here the seas make it much different. You just can’t keep as much sail up or you’ll break something flying off a big wave. You have to slow down. So, I’ve been changing sails all day long. I think I reefed and unreefed the main about five times, the jib at least twice and put up the staysail, then took it down and now it’s back up again because the wind was getting back into the mid-twenties with 6 plus foot very steep and confused seas. We were going really well, but now the wind has dropped again and I’m thinking I’ll have to take it down in the dark sometime tonight and unfurl the bigger jib so we can keep moving. Not my favorite chore, especially if I just woke up and am sleepy. Oh well.

Keep moving. That’s the order of the day. It’s why we didn’t stop at Minerva Reef. We were within three miles of it but there’s a tropical depression building over in Fiji that is scheduled to move on toward Tonga and Minerva Reef by Wednesday. We considered spending the night anchored inside the reef’s lagoon, but decided that the time would be better used moving southwards away from the storm. The weather gurus are saying it might even turn into the first cyclone of the season. That’s a lot of motivation to move south fast, which is what we’re doing. We should miss it, but we’ll catch the outside of the low pressure area and probably see 20-40 knot winds at some point in the next couple days. The boats that didn’t make it out of Tonga in time-and it’s too late now- won’t have fun either as they will have to worry whether their anchor will hold as they get blasted and buffeted by 40+ knot winds. There are going to be a lot of stories to tell next week one way or another.

We took a lot of blue water over the bow today and guess what it netted us? Pumice! Yup, there’s a bunch of pumice in the scuppers that we scooped up by burying the bow into waves full of it.

That’s the news from Charisma for the day.

And…Happy Birthday to my daughter Christine who turns 25 today (the 4th for you)! Have a great one Chris!!