We spent the day getting ready for sea. The captain went to the Gendarmerie for the last time to get final clearance papers. We stowed away gear, hauled up the dinghy motor, again, and lashed the inflatable on deck. We lashed all the fenders to the side boards and tightened the lashings on all the fuel jugs. By 3:30pm we were ready to go. Our destination is Suvarov Atoll in the Northern Cook Islands and the distance is approximately 700 nautical miles.

At 3:45pm we dropped the mooring ball and motored out of the anchorage and headed towards the pass. By 4:15 we were heading out the pass. We then prepared the whisker pole for downwind running, raised the main and secured the boom with the preventer and finally let out the genoa. It is now 5pm local time (03:00UT) and we are on our way to Suvarov making about 6k over ground in 10-12k True wind from the NE. The seas are calm with 1-2ft swells and the sky is clear. Of course, as usual we have managed to choose a passage time during the New phase of the moon, so we won't be enjoying any clearly moonlit nights. Oh well. Dark is nice too.

I am going to go on deck and see if I can get the Monitor to steer us. Right now we are using the autopilot. The windvane uses no power and so it is always our preferred method of self-steering. However, it is tricky getting it set going downwind in light air. With 10+ knots we should be able to get it to work.

Until about 2am we wallowed in a confused sea under a wing and wing arrangement making about 4-5k dead downwind. The main problem was the constant clanging and snapping and popping of the sails, each time sounding as though they would surely break something loose. We turned South a bit and pulled the main over to the starboard side and managed to reduce the grinding considerably as we proceeded on a heading of 235M. Through the night we made 4-6k in winds from 9k to 19k. No squalls or rain.