Madrona becalmed 40 miles off Timor

Hello from the old Mill Pond here off the island of Timor.

Well, from having too much wind for much of the trip, for the last couple of days we have had virtually no wind. Average wind speeds have been in the 4 to 5 knot range, and surprisingly with a mirror flat sea, we are able to make very slow progress in such light winds.

Apparently there is a high pressure system over Western Australia that has killed our local trade winds, but they should reestablish themselves in a couple days, by which time we hope to be fairly close to the south end of Timor, where we will turn into a channel between Timor and it's neighbor to the west and sail another 18 miles to Kupang - our landfall.

When it is so calm that you cannot even really sail (much) what do we do? Well, we sleep good at night as it's so calm. We do school a bit, and bathe in the cockpit. Today Carrie and Tamsyn baked bread. The other day we celebrated Griffyn's birthday! He loved his presents (and chocolate cake), and all of us have played many games of Battleship, and helped G make many mechanical contraptions with his Erector Set/Mechanix. Carrie also sewed an Indonesian flag with her new Singer hand cranked sewing machine (Thanks James!) She loved the experience and it took her only 20 minutes from opening the box to actually sewing - a novel experience considering the old Singer electric we had on board needed constant repair and adjustment.

We are enjoying these quiet days, and watched the most gorgeous sunset last night.

Owen, Carrie, Griffyn & Tamsyn

10 25.695 S
125 00.781 E
285 degrees true
2.0 knots

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