Oct 3, 2012 Nothing but pumice....all without chocolate

Oct 3  You thought the earth was filled with lava around an iron core didn't you?  We are here to tell you that it is made of Styrofoam!  One little volcano forms a hole in the skin and Styrofoam oozes out all over.  And WE HAVE PICTURES TO PROVE IT!  I'd talk about something else besides pumice but that's all we've got going on around here.  We are just bobbing around out here waiting for the wind to go the right way.  Not even a bird - just pumice. We would be motor sailing and getting there shortly but, as you recall, we can't use the aft fuel tank with the gushing leak and thus are short of fuel.  Here's how we are occupying ourselves:  The Will Hamm autopilot bit the dust about two weeks ago.  We have a back up autopilot but, at the moment, it would take too much of Barry's time and energy to dig it out from storage and install it.  So we have be relying on the Monitor.  As you recall, Sir Monitor (notice the change in status and title) doesn't work if there is no wind.  For those occasions we put Will Helm (the WH Autopilot) to work and when it doesn't work, we have an electric tiller pilot.  Heaven forbid we should have to steer ourselves.  That is the ultimate in boring and exhausting!  Sir Monitor starting coming apart this morning and that genius, Barry, the saint, is out there fixing it.  This is not unusual to have things start to unravel after the approximately 6000 nautical miles Sunrise has just sailed; therefore, if you go sail long passages bring a physicist with horse sense.

I'm starting to feel repentant about eating, almost single-handedly, the 10 or so big chocolate bars that Vince and Noelle brought us in August.  Now I'm deprived.  But we are no longer deprived of news.  Our favorite daughter selects and sends us very interesting news.  She entertains us while Vince minds the coffers.  That's the other thing you need for long passages and long term cruising - good children to keep your affairs in order and provide human contact.  Speaking of human contact we have not seen a single ship since leaving Niue.  And speaking of birds (right?) several sightings of Sooty Shearwater.  Those birds are everywhere!