The dance of the windex, at the top of the mast are some pointy things that point to the direction the wind is coming from. Ths morning they are doing 360 rotations, clockwise, counter clockwise almost like a corragraphed dance move. The wind is trying to figure out which way to blow as we motor on, no sails in the air.

We planned on 18 days so this should be 1/2 way but looking at the map and distance left to go its more like 1/4 the way and the weather doesn’t seem to want to cooperate. I guess the trade winds took the season off, bad economy equals less trade?

The morning shift is pretty easy with no waves and no wind. Christine is just waking up to take over the watch, as I get to go get some more sleep.

500 miles from anywhere, and on our port a ship shows up and its going to come within .1 miles of us crossing our path. Christine is going to get to do some avoidance. No problems, just duck down behind the big boy and we were on our way.

Today was probably the quintessential day at sea. Blue sky, Blue water, light wind and when we woke up, a tuna had decided to jump on our hook overnight. That brings an end to the 1100 mile drag of hooks with but a mere nibble. Well actually its the second nibble, but the other one was so huge, and put up a fight for a minute or two before deciding the hook didn’t taste quite right.

A small Bonita (tuna family) caught in the morning, cleaned and served for dinner, Ahi style with rice and green beens – yummy. Oh and cold beer to wash it all down. We also cut into the cured ham leg we brought on board, its like a fresh place to grab procuito, its a salty bacon kind of beef jerky. So when you is hungry, just slice off a chunk.

Christine didn’t want to tempt fate but still tried a piece of the Ahi, and said it was good. But seeing the whole process from start to finish probably had something to do with the trepidation.

Weather reports, or grib files are how we get weather reports, and the emails from Donald that help tremendously when we can’t get sailmail to bring down the large grib files. We view the weather arrows, see that tomorrow brings good weather, but notice that its not correct for the weather we are having today. So is it eternal optimism that we believe the weather report for tomorrow will be correct? Or just wishful thinking? Either way we are just doing what we can with the winds we have to keep on course to St. Lucia.

All in all, another restful day for the crew as we motor sailed again. We are down to 1/2 a tank of diesel so we’ll be pulling over at the next .. oh wait, so still hoping for some favorable winds soon.

Course over ground: 262 Speed over ground: 4.9kn Total miles through water: 439 (dunno what happened here, a time warp?) Miles to destination: 1908 kn if we were a bird.

Beautiful day, the huge waves are gone, the sun is shining bright, the wind is a very light 10kn, we are just ghosting along.

SailMail is how we get emails and weather reports has been giving us fits lately. Mostly because we have been over using it, we are supposed to be allowed only 30 mins a day, but each email is taking like 3-5 mins to get delivered on slow connections. Now that its real early in the AM, I can get a fast connection but we are over our time limit. So that means no more weather reports till our ban is lifted. Also means no updates to friends and families.

We are 500 miles from shore and you would think you are on lake austin at night its so smooth out here you could go bare-footing. The bio-luminesce behind the boat is really cool, green fireworks show that follows us along and off the bows as they move through the water.

Great day for all crew, breakfast tacos, samiches, and brochette for dinner.

Took the opportunity to fix a few things that had broken earlier in the rougher weather. Topping lift is back to new, no more rope tied together, Marvin’s long arms allowed him to reach the end of the boom with out some boom balancing that I was going to try. Also, fixed they lazy jacks that had come undone a couple nights ago, another trip up the mast to get the wayward lazy jack. Now the main sail can fall back into the bag where it belongs.

Also hooked up AIS so we can see the ships close by, using a Simrad AI50, nifty little device. Just a temporary hook up its working quite nicely spoted a few ships out here, but nothing closer than 15 miles so far

All in all a great day and crew is resting peacefully with no waves or wind at this time, just the drone of one engine pushing us along, hoping that tomorrow brings favorable winds and access to SailMail.

Course over ground: 255 Speed over ground: 4.7kn Total miles through water: 1037 Miles to destination: 2030 kn if we were a bird.

Sunday is the day of rest after all, so that’s what today was all about. Slowed things down, got some peaceful sleep, not too much crashing over waves. Oh did I say waves? 15+ footers were everywhere all day long with about 30kn of wind. Just trying to hold our course till better sailing conditions arrive. We are running one motor and a small jib out front. Not winning any races this way but has a slow comfortable feel in the boat.

The sounds of a catamaran are so much different than the somewhat soothing sounds of a mono hull. Working toward the wind you always have quartering waves, the small ones do nothing but the larger ones sometimes smack the side of the vertical hull with a loud bang, we haven’t had much bridge deck slamming – when the waves hit under salon between the hulls. The monohulls ride lower in the water and the sides are curved when they are healed over, the vertical side of the catamaran sometimes makes you think you are hitting things, but if you watch it out the excape hatch you can just see the wave slap the side of the hull. One of the things that makes getting a good night sleep a challenge out here.

My bruises from the Cirque du Soliel try out are coming in quite nicely, Christine said I need to be quiet or she’ll batter me some more.

Chicken alfredo for dinner, pretty yummy stuff, surely hit the spot. Slept well almost too well, now I want to go back to bed, but its my 1-4am shift. Still cool at night, long pants, long sleeve water proof tops for the spray on Mr Toad’s Wet Ride. Washed the boat in a 2 thunderstorms too, course the spray came right back and salted it up again.

Crew is all feeling good, no one really tried to get extra rest but everyone looked less frazzled then the day before. Today when the sun comes up, we’ll untie the main and start to get some more speed out of the boat and tack to weather as it seems the wind will only come from the due west. The waves have settled down a bit by now, the wind is down in the mind 20s so its time to heat it up, but with all the jury rigging of the sail bag, its probably best to wait till light to undo that mess so no more lines chafe through.

Course over ground: 222 Speed over ground: 2.6kn Total miles through water: 912 Miles to destination: 2131 kn if we were a bird.