St. Helena to Ascension Island…..Day 3

St. Helena to Ascension Island…..Day 3

June 12th, written the morning of June 13th, 2013 (Western Hemisphere) Time: GMT

Yesterday started out a bit blustery, but we were able to use the full main and genoa for several hours before the winds came up over 22 knots and decided
to put in the first reef. We sailed that way all day and just before dark it started to come up to the mid high 20\’s so we took in the second reef.

Just before dark, we gybed on to port tack and we sailed that way till 4 am. Then took out one reef and this morning we\’re \”full laundry\” with the full main, genoa poled out and the reacher to leeward. We\’ll be on port tack most of the rest of the way. We didn\’t over stand, but might have gybed yesterday morning or noon in retrospect.

We\’re doing 7-8 knots and I\’m now pushing a bit as I want to make sure we\’re anchored before dark tomorrow night at Ascension Island. There is a large commercial
mooring field there, the buoys are black and I want to keep clear of it in daylight. Friends Dave & Kathie said there was a likely fairly shallow anchorage spot inside the field and I\’d like to try that for our anchoring spot. No small boat moorings here as there were in St. Helena.

The other tricky business is the dinghy landing there. No shore boat either! We\’ll have to tie a line to a float that is off the dock so that we can pull the dinghy away from it when ashore. The surge is apparently quite an affair there and we want to make sure dinghy and crew don\’t get bashed. Fuel will be by jerry can there as well and the good news is, we won\’t need more than about 80 liters (20 gallons) if that.

One of our instrument plastic cases self destructed yesterday, but I\’ve got it all taped back up. This was a defect problem in the plastic cases of our Maretron sailing displays. It\’s more of an annoyance than anything. All else is well. Exercise day was yesterday..we\’re getting fitter and the flab is going…:-)

We\’ll do around a 168 mile day. Position report will be up in an hour. Hope to see the island shortly after sunrise tomorrow morning.
KIT,
Scott and Nikki