Pacific Odyssey - Leg 3

Today at 1600 we crossed the International Date Line.  If you are wondering what happened to the log for September 24th, well, that´s what happened to it.  We never got to the end of the 24th, and now it´s the 25th.  Arwen was joking that her birthday would be shortened or missed altogether as it falls on September 26, tomorrow.  She´s happy because she has had to wait one day less.  Today´s birthday wishes go to Bo Large, from Arwen, whose birthday is September 24. Happy Birthday Bo.  Also, Skipper, Elske, Bec, Arwen, Jacob, Noah, Simon and myself would like to wish my dad a very good day today, September 25, it´s his birthday.  Happy Birthday dad, opa, Rin from all of us.  Skipper pulled out a world map which indicated the different time zones and explained our traverse over the date line.  The Intermediates were excited as their test was supposed to be September 24, but we ran out of that day. Now they have a few more days to study as we have decided to stop at the very small and not often visited island of Niuatoputapu, the most northerly group of islands in the Tongan group.  Skipper was doing some research today and brought it up to the group as a whole, as an option to visit on our route to the Vava´u group; the decision to go there was unanimous, we´re thinking it may be more similar to Palmerston than some of the places on the bigger islands. Today was a good day; the weather was inconsistent.  It started out very hot and there are no sails up, which meant there was no shade.  Bodies were lying in pencil shapes, hugging the narrow shade produced by the hatches and houses.  Just after lunch the sky turned incredibly grey and ominous and the sea looked black; the wind started to pick up and was blowing spray off the tips of the waves.  We had time to get everything down below i.e. books, pillows etc. and were standing by with shampoo and in our suits, ready for our fresh water shower.  It was luxurious, there´s no other word, we were all pretty silly with happiness at the sensation of cool, fresh water running over our hot and sweaty bodies.   We were able to catch significant amounts of water in the foredeck tarp (we put it up around lunchtime for shade).  By crouching down at the edge of it and pulling down gently with a finger, we could lead the water over our heads and down ourselves.  The squall lasted a good half hour and the clouds stayed for the remainder of the day.  We all felt wonderfully chilled, goose bumps standing proud on our bare skin.  There have been a couple of smaller squalls since then.  The air became somewhat less hot and the fact that we were all wet and had had our bodies cooled down, made for a more comfortable afternoon.  The boat below decks is still very warm.  I heard from Sam that Matt´s bunk is so unbearably hot that he has taken to sleeping under the hold table.  Every night he lays his mattress down and spreads out his sleeping bag on the sole of the hold, and sleeps . . . well.  His bunk is one of the top bunks in the hold, where all the heat collects and the air does not circulate.  Skipper taught celestial navigation to Carolyn, Krista and Tom today.  They weren´t able to take their afternoon sights as the sun was behind the clouds. Tomorrow.  Arwen baked cookies again for us today; she is a wonderful baker and loves to do it, and, like I´ve said so many times, the galley is very hot.  Jordan´s work takes him into the engine room regularly and there too, it is intensely hot.  The temperature the other day was 51 degrees centigrade, a new high . . . in more ways than one.  I´m not sure how Jordan, Gillian and Katie do it, in that heat. They tell me that one tip for surviving is to drink lots of water, like 3-5 litres a day.  Gillian made hotdogs for supper.  This sounds like an easy meal, but it isn´t.  She has to make about 100 hotdog buns and shaping them isn´t as easy as you think. She also made relish, fried onions, and a large salad to go with it.  Sam, Chase, Gillian and Caelen stayed up late in the hold last night, learning some Chinese words from Gillian, who has spent several months there before sailing with the Grace.  Apparently it turned quite silly as the night wore on and Chase and Gillian´s journal writing didn´t get done.  Jacob, Sam, Chris and Susan continued working on the trebuchet.  Today they lashed a pig of lead from the galley bilge onto the swing arm with marlin.  It looks pretty impressive.  We had several bites on our fishing line today.  One took Chase´s lure and snapped off 200ft of line, the other just got off the hook as we were reeling it in.  When we brought in the fishing lines tonight, the tale of the lure was completely eaten away.  We are looking forward to fish again, it´s something most of us enjoy.  This is it, time to cool off up on deck for a few minutes.  Good night, Bonice.