Workout.

Being in a yacht thats sailing through moderate swells and waves and is heeled over doin a good speed is like being in a gym doing a workout that tests every muscle in your body, anad it carries on all day. I mean right now we are on starboard and doing 6.3 knots in wind up to 14 knots through those swells which were glassy yesterady but now are rough - and just to move from A to be requires a lot of physical effort - I have to brace myself with my knees and back just to sit here and type, and my posture is constantly having to adjust to the changing angle of the boat to the sea. The best thing to do is wedge yourself into a corner somewhere and then you dont have to do anything to stay there, and thats what I do usually ouside the companionway, but then things have to be done...Its really hard work and quite tiring.

So today has been a day of great sailing, very gentle start in light wind that has picked up to be moderate and steady and Sapphire is punching into the swells that are coming at us off the starboard bow. Ive already put a reef in the main and that seems to be all thats needed right now to keep us going at 6 to 6.5 knots, making up for lost time! My Garmin GPS says that at this rate will be going around North Cape during Saturday night but lighter winds are forecast so hopefully it will be Sunday during the day. I so want to catch a first glimpse of NZ on the Horizon and sail past Cape Reinga light and North Cape in daylight. Most Kiwis have been there, to the very northernmost tip of our long wonderful country and gazed out to sea, north to the Three Kings Islands, and down below at the meeting of the waters, the rugged Tasman Sea and the mighty Pacific oceans. This place has huge spiritual significance for our indigenous people, who believe the spirits of the dead depart from here and journey back to Hawaiiki, their ancestral home. I had a visit from several Dolphins this morning and they frolicked about Sapphire for a few minutes, but no yachts or ships to be seen anywhere. I replaced the tall red vane on the hydrovane with the Stubby version because the Tall one was getting smacked by the wind turbine and shredding the cloth. But the stubby one, being shorter but also wider, misses the Vanes, and actually having used it properly for the first time ever today, I think it does a better job than the tall thin one that you will have seen at the stern in photos of Sapphire on the Blog. I am sure that the Targa, and the outboard motor mounted on the pushpit rail must affect windflow around the stern of the boat and onto the vane and I think somehow Stubby manages it better. The wind is expected to ease off eventually but if it stays like this we will make great progress overnight, but at the cost of my tiredness, because things have to be adjusted and checked more often. I'm having rice and chili beef and beans for dinner. This is a meal that probably only lone sailors should eat.

Sapphire Out.

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