I awoke early this morning, it was too quiet. On deck all was peaceful, the anchor cable was lying soundlessly in the water. After days of wind this was a pleasant surprise. I was now too awake to go back to sleep and it was too early to wake Jessica.
For the next hour I pottered about, putting in some waypoints to the GPS, reading some old news clippings and getting the ships papers’ ready for clearing out from Kiritimati. Then I made toast and marmalade for breakfast and woke Jessica – who couldn’t complain too much about the time as she was presented with breakfast.
After breakfast we launched the pig and headed into London to clear out with customs and immigration. This was an easy and pleasant affair and cost us AU$20. With clearance in hand we set off to do some final provisioning. We discovered poor quality oranges cost $3.5 each and water was $3 a bottle. Other items were similarly expensive and we ended up getting not much at all. I will need to start fishing again.
I found that there are chickens on Christmas Island, I saw a whole bunch running around a yard. No doubt some enterprising local doesn’t like paying $1.50 for each egg.
When we returned to Truce the wind and sea had picked up again and we had a wet ride. Once back on board we made ready for sea, lashing and stowing everything in its place. At eleven o’clock I started the engine and began hauling up the anchor. By midday we had cleared Cooks Passage and started out voyage south to Penrhyn.
The first hour we sped south on a beam reach at over seven knots. However, as soon as we cleared the Island the wind went around to the south east and we are back with the wind on the port bow. Beating into the wind, crashing and banging, salt spray everywhere (thank goodness for the hard dodger) and a strong feeling of Déjà vu. At the moment we can’t lay the course south and are getting pushed to the west.
Predict Wind weather routing has the wind coming from the east and further down the track from north of east. That will be perfect. I hope the wind comes around in the next few hours because I don’t fancy five more days going to windward. We both had enough of that coming from Honolulu to Kiritimati. Sailing should be fun, a little bit of going to windward occasionally is OK, but not for days on end. In the back of my mind I have the option of missing Penrhyn and going direct to Suwarrow if the wind stays south of east.
Apart from my moaning about the wind everything is fine, clear skies with fluffy clouds, fifteen knots of wind and we are making reasonable speed in the general direction of south. The biggest problems we have now is deciding what to eat for dinner.
The Adventures of Captain Ray Penson 
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