For a variety of reasons, including expense, we were unable to replace our favourite sail, our "Chicken Chute", in New Zealand, which is definitely sorely missed on this passage. When the seller of a sail we had sourced doubled his price at the last minute, we took the decision to postpone a new purchase until we are able to bring a new sail back with us from the USA. Well, for another host of reasons, we never made it back to the USA whilst in Fiji, so no sail. We rationalised that, given the strong south-easterlies we had experienced over the past few months and the angle of our destinations until we reach Australia, it was unlikely we would need a downwind sail. With the wind right up Paw Paw's stern, guess we were wrong!

Although we can sail Paw Paw wing-on-wing, it is a very slow point of sail and in light winds, even slower. As a result we have been motor-sailing for most of this passage. The forecast had originally predicted stronger south-easterlies today, but instead, we have light east-north-east winds.

It is a beautiful sunny day, though, in relatively flat following seas and the current has come around in our favour, so we're soldiering on, in the hopes that we can keep our average speed at a minimum of 6.1 Kts so as to make landfall tomorrow while it is still light versus having to hove-to and spending another night at sea.

The highlight of our day was a brief chat to Keenan this morning. Not having a radio net to participate in, since we're emailing our position reports, hearing another voice was a break from the monotony and seeing another yacht pop up on the AIS last night was at least company until we passed them a few hours ago. Unfortunately Chinese fishing vessels seem to be more prevalent than dolphins.