Last night just after 8pm, with the wind having died to about 3k we were basically drifting South at about 1.5k, so we fired up the engine and motor sailed through the night. We made on average about 5.5k over ground running the engine at 1400rpms to conserve fuel - we are not certain, but we think we have enough fuel to make it all the way. This morning at 7:00am local time we shut down the engine for the morning radio net and reports from boats all over the area were the same - glassy seas and no wind. Of course, most of those reports came from boats at anchor. We seem to have a knack for choosing the calmest time for our passages lately.

It is now 7:40am and we are motoring again at 1500rpm and making 6k over ground. We have app. 183nm to go to Point Venus, Tahiti and then another 5 miles to Papeete. The computer is now predicting our arrival at 5pm tomorrow afternoon - not my favorite time for an arrival as it gets dark at around 5:30pm. It also doesn't leave us any wiggle room and we may have to actually slow down and lie ahull for the night and enter in the morning! Although the harbor at Papeete is very well marked, finding a place to anchor in the dark is the real problem. We don't want to wake up at 5am with an inter-island ferry bearing down on us! If our fuel does not hold out it will be a moot question anyway and we will end up bobbing about for a day or three waiting for the wind. We do have 18gallons of diesel in jerry jugs on deck in reserve, so even if we do run the tanks completely dry we will have enough left to charge batteries and enter the harbor under power. On the other hand, if we manage to get just a little more wind we can increase our speed dramatically and make our arrive in the early afternoon. We will just have to wait and see.

At 5:15pm I went on deck and noticed we were dragging a fish! I was last on deck at about 4:30pm - ok, I should be going out more frequently to check for ships (which might be on a collision course) but we have not seen another ship in months except near the atolls we have been anchored at. Apparently the fish was unable to fight enough to pull any line off the reel otherwise we would have heard that familiar "click- click- click click" that announces "HEY! There's a fish on the line!". Perhaps the drag setting is too high - it is perfect for tuna. The last fish we caught was a Yellowfin of about 12lbs and it easily managed to pull some line off. After cranking in the reel I was ecstatic to find I had hooked a nice sized Mahi-Mahi - my absolute favorite fish. Further, since we are hundreds of miles from any reefs and the Mahi is a pelagic species we have no worries about Ciguatera! Unfortunately, Kate had taken out some steaks from the freezer (our last steaks) and defrosted them so I felt bound to cook those for dinner instead (with green peppercorn sauce). Jonah, however, did sample the Mahi and loved it. Ok, I had a taste of his and it was awesome!

Well, it is now 8pm and we have just finished dinner. We have been motoring all day and the wind is now about 2.5k from the North, so we will be motoring all night I am sure. At times during the day the wind increased to 8k and we were able to make good speed over ground while running the engine at very low rpms. With no wind at all, however, we are making app. 1800rpms in order to keep our speed above 6k. Our Nav-O-Computer is predicting arrival in Papeete at about 2pm tomorrow if we keep up this speed.

We spent some time today evaluating our fuel stores and are confident we have a sufficient quantity to continue motoring the entire way. Unfortunately, our "Tank Tender" monitoring system is less then reliable, and today it came loose in its mount and now we are unable to turn the tank selector dial (which allows you to select which tank you want to check the level of). We pulled up some floorboards to gain access to each tanks built-in float gauges and thus we are confident we know what the tanks contain.