Tierra del Diego or bust

Well, it didn't take long for our routing plans to be thwarted. The weather forecasters told us to head east ASAP. They apparently didn't want us going anywhere near the low pressure system we were planning on riding to the NE. The weather routing program I'm using made the predicted wind speeds look manageable yesterday, but updated data changed that. The low we were heading toward looks pretty serious.

It's good that they want to protect us from getting beat up by that storm, but it leaves us dithering again just north of Hawaii. The wind is such that we can't even head east very well. We have to go southeast. Our present course will take us to Tierra del Fuego. It's an interesting choice between TdF and a Gale.

The forecasters insist the wind will turn toward a more favorable direction later in the week. By turning east as we have, we're essentially killing time while we wait. If I'm losing as much south as I gain going east, I'm not motivated to sail very fast.

In other news the bilge problem has been resolved. It turns out the watermaker leaks while it's operating. That water flows into the bilge and in rough weather hides in the hull compartments under the floor boards. The water reappears in rough weather making it look like the boat is leaking somewhere. Now that we've pumped the bilge dry, water doesn't reappear when the weather gets rough.

Mark was the first to recognize this scenario. Brilliant!