Day 3, Passage to Easter Island

1245Z 30AUG19, Day 3, Ecuador to Easter Island. We continue to make steady progress. We were able to sail throughout the day yesterday. Overnight the wind died and eventually we turned on the engine for a couple of hours which gave us a chance to recharge our rather low batteries. Yesterday saw us making more westward progress with out much southern progress, however overnight the wind seems to have shifted a bit in the right direction. We shall see what the day brings.

Current Position: 03 53S 086 30W
24 hour progress: 116nm, 4.8kts avg SOG, with about 2.5 hours of motoring, approximately 1920nm to go on the great circle route. Yesterday was rather gray but the clouds thinned out in the early morning hours providing a window to the starry sky and a nice sunrise. We continue to sail close hauled and are pretty close to the desired rhumb line course. A little more wind and/or some sun would easily keep our batteries well charged without need for the engine assist. Winds are around 10kts.

The crew is well and everyone seems to have their sea legs again, even poor drooling Poseidon. Around 10am local yesterday, just as Megan was about to lie down we caught a large Mahi. Unfortunately he got away and we were all a bit disappointed as we had all started drooling before we got him on the boat. We put the line back in, let Megan get 20 minutes of sleep, and caught another Mahi. This one was smaller but we landed him fairly easily, had a sushi lunch and had the rest with broccoli and quinoa for dinner. This was our first (non-restaurant) Mahi since the Atlantic crossing. Pacific Mahi are just as tasty as their Atlantic brethren in case you were wondering. The boys are really doing well with night watches and both parents got some extra sleep last night!

The refrigerator seems to be back to working now that Jon has thoroughly cleaned and rebuilt the pump, yet again. The automatic sensor pump for the head sink has acted up again and is set back to manual (push button) operation - this is another minor headache we've become used to, probably caused by the slime (and maybe the 1" crab) rinsed out of the refrigerator filters earlier in the day. So begins the growth of the to do list for our next stop.