Whether we trust the forecasts or not, we are still in pretty light conditions - not the ‘trade wind’ SE 15 knots we expect later on. Those winds were at 2S, about 30’ from here (minutes of latitude, considerably more sailing time especially given our SW course). Over the next few days, the area of light winds may expand with the tradewinds receding into the distance - until about 5S. By Tuesday, they should be back though - and from that point on it looks like we should be able to expect reasonable winds. Fingers crossed!
As Anthony came on watch last night and I joined the Pacific Puddle Jump SSB radio net, the sea state deteriorated slightly, back to the confused mess we had a few days ago. This persisted until my watch (3:30am) when it started to smooth out to the predictable SE swell. At 6am, I put out the lines (whilst it was still dark) and reeled in our first small fish of the trip before dawn. I’d have thrown it back but it had taken the hook so well, it wasn’t going to be easy to release. Instead we will turn it into ceviche.
We’re going to change the clocks today. We’re not quite at 90W but already the sun is rising after 7am. At midday today we will change ship’s time back an hour which will make us 7 hours behind the UK. We’ll have to change them twice more before we get to Pitcairn and once more again before Gambiers. We change at midday so that we don’t incur an extra hour on someone’s night watch.