This passage has given us a very mixed bag of conditions. Yesterday afternoon’s wind blew itself out by 7pm so the engine went back on and has been running ever since. This morning an E swell came up from behind us, but without any wind to help us sail. Frustrating, motoring in lumpy seas. Right now there’s a bit more wind, but it’s hard to say if its going to stick around because we’re also in yet another massive rain squall. Oh – and we just had a near encounter with a freighter. Thank goodness for AIS. We were on a collision course but our AIS alarm went off to tell us just that. Will called the boat and it altered course to pass astern of us. The freighter is headed for Brazil via Cape Horn, a passage that I don’t envy one bit.

We have 270 nm to go, but it’s been slow going for the pass 36 hours with the lack of wind and a current against us. We don’t have enough fuel to motor the rest of the way so we really hope that the gribs are accurate in showing 15 knots from the E tonight. We need to maintain at least a 5.5 knot average to make it to Coffs in daylight on Monday. There’s nowhere to anchor around there and I don’t think they’ll let us enter in the dark. I would much prefer to be in a berth on Monday night rather than bobbing around outside of the harbour.

Dinner tonight will be couscous and a can of ratatouille.

27 38E
157 17S
5.3 knots (as I post this we’ve just turned the engine off)
6-9 knots apparent (too little to go wing on wing, so we’re heading south of our desired course on a port tack) 205T