Sorry for the delay in getting this update out to everyone. Your probably wondering what happened. In my last update I told you that we stand our watches to watch for boats that might hit us in the night. There is another reason we stand a watch and this is something that we are watchful for all the time and that is equipment failure.
It is Monday morning 2 AM and I have had a completely non eventful watch. I go down and get Barbara up and get ready for a 3 hour sleep. I take one last look around to make sure all was in order and suddenly, out of the blue, the auto pilot went out and started turning the boat in circles. It is pitch black the moon has just set and I am not sure what is going on other than the boat is not going in the right direction. I take the boat out of auto pilot and start hand steering. When you are in the middle of the ocean, in the middle of the night you have no visual reference to be able to steer the boat. I could use the compass but as luck would have it the light was out so no good to me at night. Anyway, we did about 3 turns not knowing which way we were headed. We got the idea to turn all the power off to our auto pilot and nav instruments and reboot everything. After we did that everything came up and started working again. Thank goodness! Hand steering the boat for the next 30 hours was not my idea of a lot of fun. We still have no idea what made it do that and makes it even more imperative to keep an eye on everything. So back on course with the auto pilot driving the boat and Barb and I sitting in the cockpit we wonder if it was going to go out again. It is now 3 am and I am still pretty wound up. I lay down to sleep and probably only get about an hour before it is my time to go on watch again.
Monday the sun rose on a beautiful day. The sea was like a lake early the morning without any wave chop. Absolutely flat dead calm. Since we are a sail boat a little wind would be good but that was not going to be in the cards today. We continue to motor sail and are on track for arrival in Norfolk Island the next morning at 9am.
Monday finishes with no more problems and it has been so calm Barbara was able to cook us a great meal with pork filets rice and fresh broccoli. On passages it is unusual to have a cooked meal like that because the boat is pitching and rolling so much you can't cook.
So, after an eventful start to the day we end on a good note and get ready to put the anchor down the next morning. This is Destiny clear and standing by on 1-6.
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