Position: 35 degrees 25 minutes south; 178 degrees 15 minutes east

Day two is always a tough day. You can tell I’m tired if I can’t find a better title for this post! You aren’t in a rhythm yet, you’re not sleeping yet, getting used to the noises and the shifts, and add to that wind in the mid-30’s or so followed once we got out of the shadow of New Zealand, by 10 foot waves. Well, you get the picture. Then to add to it all, the strap that holds the wind vane steering block sheared its bolts. At 0300. In the morning. A loud POP!

Here's a picture of the jury rigged block in the daylight. You can see the three temporary lines holding in more or less in place, although "floating" in air. You can just see the broken shackle (actually the screw sheared).

At first I was resigned to a very long night hand steering. I didn’t want to wake Ann since that watch is her best opportunity for uninterrupted sleep. But as I thought about it, I figured a way to strap it – kind of in mid air- with three pieces of rope attached to various places in the cockpit. The trick was to get enough tension because that is the main turning block and has to hold the steering lines tight or they come off the wheel. Well, after a couple tries I got it fixed enough that it steered the rest of the night. After breakfast, with Ann up and able to help I got out the drill, a new spare strap, etc and fixed it. Problem solved.

New holes, new screws and the shackle holding the steering block is back where it belongs.

In the meantime it actually turned into a kind of nice day. Almost warm, some sun and the wind let up. Got a little sleep and things look better, although we sailed through a front of some kind just about Charisma time and in an instant it went from sunny and nice to clouds, rain and wind. Now we’re back to 20-30, not as bad as last night though. Double reefed main and stays’l seem to be happy sailing along more or less in the right direction at about 6 knots.

The other highlight of the day was an albatross sighting. Actually two! There’s a pair working this area and we saw them majestically soaring along the wave top search for unwary prey. The interesting thing about these birds is they never, ever flap their wings. They just glide and soar, gently rising a bit to get high enough off the water to turn, effortlessly banking their impressive six-plus foot wingspan, just feeling the water, but never really making a mark.

So, the wind is supposed to ease a bit over the next couple days, but then the gale. We’re working to figure out how best to avoid that. For now, we’re angling a bit north to get “above” it. We’ll see.

You can tell it's a bit bumpy when I have to have a special "cozy" for my lunchtime beer to keep it from flying across the cabin.