A little more Juice

A little more Juice

backyapWe set out from Yap to head back to Ulithi Monday afternoon. We pulled the anchor at 3pm and raised the sail at 4pm at the mouth of the harbor. by 8 pm we had tacked 4 times in light winds and had gained 2.6 nautical miles in the direction of our objective, Ulithi, 100 miles away. Which meant, if the wind held up and we hand steered the whole time with laser like focus to fight for every inch of Eastward, we would get to Ulithi in 6 days… Unfortunately, despite our confidence in our ability to forgo sleep and maintain vigilance for six days straight, the wind is predicted to calm today and there was no way we were going to make it to Ulithi under sail power…
We usually only carry 30 gallons of diesel, which, with our little engine will get let us run for about 45 hours. Upwind and upstream to Ulithi/Guam that would get us to Ulithi but only give us another 10 hours toward Guam. Since there is a storm possibly forming up to the East and no wind predicted for the next week, we decided to return to Yap to scrounge for any container we can find and fill it with diesel so we can motor the whole way if we need to. Our goal for today is to find enough containers to increase our fuel capacity from 30 gal to 100 gal and then try again for Ulithi.