Our 6-10 p.m. watch held the Nā Leo heading at 6 knots on average. They did at one point head Noio Koʻolau and then they brought our waʻa back to Nā Leo due to luffing of the sails. We have our dominant swells coming from Lā Koʻolau and after the sunrise, the crew held the course by paying attention to the swells.
Updates and navigation reports often make reference to “star houses” – segments of the Hawaiian star compass, which was developed by Nainoa Thompson.
At noon Timi caught a mahimahi and we did a dorsal fin sampling and stomach content. Our fish was starving as it had no food in its ōpū. There were two rows of eggs that we documented.
Our 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. watch held Haka Koʻolau averaging about 5 knots. The winds became lighter during this watch today. There are clouds at our horizon, but otherwise looks very clear. They also saw a koaʻe kea during their watch.
On our 2 p.m. – 6 p.m. watch, we changed from Jib 21 to Genoa 33A. We have picked up the speed to average 5.5 knots. Our heading is Nā Leo Koʻolau. We just picked up speed to about 7 knots.
All the watches had the hoe (steering paddle) down and just trimmed the sails. We have all been having so much fun being out in the ocean!