Last night was one of the most glorious sails of our entire cruise. The wind shifted a bit to the South and we were able to bring the jib over to the starboard side (we had been going wing and wing) and immediately the ride became much more comfortable. The wind blew a steady 18-22k all night long and we were making 7.5-8.5k the entire time. This morning we were able to record a 24 hour run of 174 miles, one of our best runs ever.

Unfortunately, the entire thing has been marred by the last 2 hours we spent this morning trying to get the engine started again. Yesterday in calm air we motor sailed for a few hours and accidentally ran the tank dry (one of the tanks that is). As I described in yesterday's log this is not a good thing as we have a hard time bleeding the air out when this happens, and it has happened quite a few times. Normally we have to wait at least 4 or 5 hours before we can sucessfully bleed the engine. We decided to just wait till the morning and even though it had been over 15 hours we had a devil of a time. I still don't know why, but repeated attempts revealed an amazing amount of air in the system.

As if that wasn't enough we also decided to add some oil to the engine and when Kate pulled out a gallon jug of oil from our fuel locker where it is stored she discovered the container had chafed through and was leaking oil. After she cleaned up the container and covered the hole with duct tape she discovered that several other jugs of oil had also chafed and we have motor oil all over the shelves in the locker. Needless to say she is not a happy camper this morning.

On the bright side we have the engine running again and are charging batteries while motor sailing. We have 51 miles to go to Ofa/Olosega, our destination, and it looks like we may be able to manage an arrival before nightfall. The wind remains steady but somewhat weaker at about 15-17k and has backed a bit to the East so that we had to pull the genoa back to the port side. We are once again running downwind wing and wing making 7+k over ground toward our goal.

Well, we arrived at Ofu at 4pm with plenty of sunlight to spare. However, we were unable to find a suitable place to anchor. We are very disappointed and are now heading to PagoPago. Since Pago is only 51 miles away, and the wind is blowing like hell at 25k we cannot go straight there as we would arrive in the middle of the night. We have a reef in the main and the staysail up with no genny. We are still making 5.5 - 6k and are on a heading of 236M. We are aiming for a point about 20 miles South of Pago after which we will tack North the rest of the way. We may have to reduce sail again if the wind does not abate some or we will still arrive before dawn! When it rains it pours.