15th July 2011

Position: 31°18.1’ N / 159°42.4’ W (Somewhere in the North Pacific Ocean)

It’s a beautiful day, meaning sunny with low cumulus clouds and no other type above. We have north easterly swells and wind on our fine starboard beam; we’re a tad farther upwind from the rest of fleet and have received orders to change our course from direct north to 20 degrees west of north. This will bring us closer to the fleet (we’re slightly behind them at the moment but it’s not a big deal, we’re averaging 7 knots in winds of 8-14 knots) but still upwind from them so that when we’re given directions from our fleet Captain or leading Navigators to change course directly east we would have made good ground for the turn.

After a full hour of daily housekeeping we settled into breakfast, Lolesio made wholemeal bread garnished with onions, tomatoes and cheddar cheese, lightly grilled with boiled eggs with a large selection of hot beverages: tea (100 types!), real coffee and cocoa.

The whole morning we’ve had our radio on, a large variety of music blaring from our home made speakers: two large 20kg buckets with small speakers attached to the lids. We bring them out during days like this and store them when the weather is foul.

Lolesio has prepared roast lamb for lunch and we’re now trying to figure out what to have it with: rice or potatoes. Of course Lolesio has now vetoed both suggestions as there’s still left over taro from last night. Things become basic on board - safety, shelter and food are the usual challenges and cause most of the dynamics.

We’ve been going through our saimin (instant noodles) rations pretty quickly. Thank you to our new aiga(s) in Hawaii who have welcomed us into their homes and hearts and providing us with food provisions and grooming accessories (faafetai lava Talu J ). The crew would like to send their faafetai tele lava and alofa’aga to our new found families in the Hawaiian Islands, your endless generosity and support knows no bounds.
Faafetai faafetai tele lava.
Soifua,

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Gaualofa.