day/night #6

the south pacific is treating us well - apart from the fact that it won't give us a fish to eat just yet.
instead it throws squids at us, unfortunately during the night and so quiet, we only find them in the morning, when they are too old to eat.

since yesterday evening we've been sailing with a poled out genoa (headsail) to be able to do a better westerly course. we even go a bit north again which is great, as the trade winds will come from the east the further west we get. this means we will have to go further south in order to keep the sails full...to have a better angle to the wind later on in the trip, we will try to get as far west before we head down south straight line to the marquesas.

we've been asked a couple of questions and here are the answers:
1.whats the story with your AIS then? Shipfinder etc reports last pos at
panama canal. - well, AIS works over the vhf antenna, so we only have a range of line of sight similar to the vhf range (about 20-25nm) our signal is actually a bit weaker as we are a class B vessel (pleasure vessel) - so we would only be picked up by another ship about 10nm away.
the class A vessels (commercial) will send signals we can pick up about 50nm away.
however, in some areas close to land, repeater stations have been set up so we could for example see the whole shipping traffic of the mediterranean at some point near the coast of spain.
so at first the AIS range is very limited.
to shipfinder and marintraffic it has to be said, that the AIS information can only be put into the system if a landstation gets our signal. the further west we head, the more remote areas are and the less repeater stations are found that are connected with the internet. there was one in galapagos to enable us to see the traffic around these islands, but it was not connected to the world wide web.

2. Is your position entered automatically on the mailasail site every time you post?
no, we enter this information via sending an email over the sat-phone with our coordinates.
this is why it was not always up to date in the recent months, as we did not always get the sat phone going to send a position report.

3.And you should get some salt water soap and bath in the ocean, you poofs?
maybe!? - you go first!....but don't you let go of the line with the fender tied to the end! (otherwise we'll have to call couple of dolphins to rescue you!)