Day 1- what time is it anyway?

Time: 0100 Zulu Thurs 11/1 (noon New Caledonia Thurs 1 Nov)
Position: 18*26'S 175*00'E
Wind: SE 10 Seas: SSW 5-ft
Avg. Course: 258-deg T
Avg. Speed: 4.3-knots
Rig: 100% jib, full mains'l
Distance noon to noon point: 113-nm

We are thus far having a beautiful sunny light wind sail, soaking up the relaxing moments. It is refreshing to have our entire mains'l and 100% jib up (though more difficult to scan for traffic under it's low cut) as well. Together this sail combination is moving us along at a quite respectable clip considering the light winds and Moni is steering us true. Seas are steep but spaced far apart for an easy ride though we are making extra miles climbing up and down all of them... The last 24-hrs has been filled with cycles of light wind from S barely moving us along to SE and having to pull a single reef in the main two different times. We have waited out lulls and reefed down briefly twice when consistently reaching speeds in the upper 6's for an overall excellent first day of sailing. It is such a luxury that both of our stomachs are feeling fine, hopefully they stay that way! Shawn has improved her hand-bearing-compass sightings as the official ship spotter all between 1 and 2-nm; first a fishing vessel, then a cargo ship (Lautoka bound and the only one with an AIS signal), then two more fishing vessels. So many people claim to never see ships on their passages, makes us wonder how often they're looking, but then again, Chris hasn't sighted any yet either.

Things are seeming very familiar onboard. Our bodies seem to know the drill even though we haven't practiced in a while and we are quickly getting in the groove of watch schedules. Many hours of this trip have been whiled away trying to decide what time it actually is on board Tao. Of course, we always have Zulu, that time never changes, but it also doesn't fit well with the sunlight and dark hours. You have probably been on at least one timezone changing flight where everything seems a little strange and you continually calculate what time it was where you were and what time it is where you are now. Imagine doing that slowly day after day. After much debate, for this leg of our journey we have decided to shift our local clocks back to New Caledonia time (UTC +11) in order to have Shawn awake at the appropriate meal preparation times and Chris awake at appropriate weather,radio checkin, and good up/download propagation times. We'll let you know how it goes.