Feb 04, 2005 – 0537hrs UTC

0537hrs 04 Feb 2005 UTC 48’06”S 165’53”W Map Ref 45 2161nm

Could you please tell Tony at Majestic Foods that we’ve started on the Majestic dried stuff he prepared for us and it’s great. Soup packs perfect size. Good outfit.

Cold damp dawn sailchange after only half an hour in seductively warm bunk -nasty shock after two days without a change -but we were a bit overpowered with full #1 and main in 30 kt. Productive tho – we knocked off about 165 miles in 24 hours and still getting 6-7s with cutdown and a reef-- As a verb – to shorten sail, to use reefing lines or other techniques to make the working part of a sail smaller and so reduce its power as the wind rises. --- As a noun, (1) the part of the sail that has been shortened, folded or rolled. May be referred to as a slab or a slab reef which is a particular way of forming a reef. -- As a noun (2) – a bank of coral, rocks or other obstruction usually close to a shoreline and potentially dangerous to sailors.. Getting a bit north and will have to run down later today if the forecast wind change arrives. Still watching the nasties in the Tasman. If anyone is interested in looking at the same weather charts as we get by fax, go to www.bom.gov.au and select weather charts, then South Pacific Ocean MSLP Anal valid 0000 or 1200 UTC under (I think, from decrepit memory) South Pacific on the left of the screen. MSLP=mean sea levelMean Sea Level; the height of the sea after averaging out changes of wind, waves and tide pressure analysis. NZ has a less comprehensive version covering just NZ waters on its Metservice website. Couldn’t pull in the Oz fax this morning so may be getting out of range or generally awful radio propagationIn the logs, this refers to the radiation of signal energy and is customarily qualified by the words abysmal, ratshit or lousy down here means best chance is late evening.

Thanks Jude for chapter and verse on dinoflagellates and phosphorescence. Is it ok for Steve to post it on the website? I must admit that in the dark last night with the boat rolling a bit when it arrived I read one clause as ‘leads to a chemical erection in an orgasm’ and wondered a bit about the dinosDinoflagellates - Microscopic, (usually) unicellular, flagellated, often photosynthetic protists, commonly regarded as "algae". More here. and even flagellation and who prescribes the stuff for them. Some dreadful puns in there somewhere. Probably just wishful thinking, but anyway, it’s nice to get something sensible from at least one member of the family Quinn. And lots of other g’days; Juddy, Ron, Jop, Rob, Girdles, David, the Croo, and FenwickA friend and clearly a colourful character – just knew you’d have a go sometime FenwickA friend and clearly a colourful character when you stop drinking for a few minutes and yes, we know all this stuff is dead fartless boring and we need to spice it up a bit – we’re working on it and we’ll take medical advice and sustenance shortly to lubricate the cerebration. Anything you’d like us to tell you about? Sailing, perhaps? Antifoul in the garage, i think – Ring H. Hi Gordo – happy new house.

And Jellyfish? Nah – you and nice has never been a concept that gels. Yuk. To Craig on Sailing Anarchy, whoever you may be, we were sent your posting – Thanks. We will try and do it justice.