Lots of rain and squalls today with the jib out ½ way we were still making decent time and VMG.  I stayed inside reading most of the day and didn’t make it outside until my shift. I had to get my foul weather gear back out and on my body only to have the sun came out for me – love that.

The crew was having a tough time getting along today – after all it has been 2 months since the first two left their homes, boarded Sugar Shack and started this journey.  That is a long time to be on the same boat with one person.

We realized that thanx to these trade winds we will not run out of food or fuel – we are doing fine and planned well – thank goodness.  The biggest problem now is that we will run out of snacks – I did not buy enough.  I seem to be in charge of stocking the fridge, making tea, stocking and placing evening snacks for the night shift and cleaning.  Yeah me.

I’ve started feeding Matt the idea of staying in St Lucia through Christmas but know it will be a hard sell as we are already on unpaid time off –

We officially fell below 1000 miles to go today – let the count down begin!  We made another 200 mile day yesterday, look at us kicking butt.  We had a little too much wind for the kit so we took her down and flew with the jib which still gave us 6-8 knots of boat speed.  We all showered again today, but the water was a tad bit cold since we have not been running the engines (charging the batteries with the generator).  But a shower is a shower – warm or not. I would rather take a cold shower and not have the engines running than a warm shower with them running!

It took us 3 times to put the kite back up, kind of funny to be honest.  The first time the line got tangled with the dagger board, the 2^nd time we noticed some tears on the kite so we took her down to tape them up, the 3^rd time was a charm J

The trade winds are fantastic and make for great sailing.  It makes such a difference to have the trade winds compared to what we experienced the first 2 weeks.  If the entire trip were like this we would have made it in 12-14 days as planned and I would seriously consider doing the crossing again.  As of now I am undecided as the first two weeks were not pleasant.

The waves are still very big, but with these winds and the spinnaker the boat moves differently across the water.  She shimmies up the wave and then dances down the other side.  They are big rollers but the movement is completely different.  It is as if the boat and the water are dancing the same routine which makes it a lot more peaceful and actually a lot of “fun” (dare I say).

This trip has afforded me the pleasure of reading a lot of wonderful books including “Born to Run” and “The Help”.  I’ve also read some silly non-thinking books, but I won’t mention those for fear of retribution J

During my shift we were flying the small kite and had pretty big winds.  I know that the other boys never wake up Matt when they are supposed to (when the winds are too strong for the rig that we have set), but I always try to err on the side of caution.  About 25 minutes after Matt hit the sheets I woke him up with concerns about the wind speed – he came up, checked it out and said we were ok.  I go back to my shift perplexed but trusting Matt.  About an hour later a squall came upon us increasing the winds a little more, so I woke Matt up again.  I tried to hurry him out of his sleep stupor and he finally agreed that we need to take the spin down.  He started the engines while I woke the crew and by the time I got back up to the deck, looked at the spinnaker – she gave in to the strength of the winds – pop!  Ugh, what a bummer as I really liked that spinnaker.  We all jumped into action as the spinnaker collapsed onto the deck and into the water, lines and all.  It took us about 45 minutes to get the spinnaker under control (as it was pitch black outside), get the jib out and get the boat back to course.  What a shift – time for bed.

We had been flying our large spinnaker A-kite which is bigger than most.  It goes from the very top of the mast to past the deck and some times almost to the water. We had to take her down today because a squall came through with too much wind.  Matt happened to look up at the mast and noticed the top ¼ of it was bending with the pull of the spinnaker so down she came!  We put up the smaller kite which is super pretty, but does not provide as much speed.  Let me clarify, when I say not as much speed, we were averaging 30 miles per shift and that has done down to 25 miles per shift – still great!

Since it was another relatively beautiful day with no pounding and decent seas, I decided to tackle the Tupperware cabinet.  I know you are thinking “what’s the big deal”.  Let me tell you what a pain in the butt it was!  There were 3 shelves in a double cabinet full of a mix match of round, oblong, square, rectangle, and tubes Tupperware.  Plus all the lids are mixed up.  So first I organized by type, then tried to figure out what fit inside where most conveniently and then tried to find the mated lid.  Once I determined what pieces we wanted to keep (based on what could be stored easily inside another piece), I matched it to a lid and marked the container with the color of the lid.  We were able to discard over 30+ pieces of Tupperware that was either old, tired, odd shaped or cracked.  I cleaned each piece, cleaned the cupboard, inventoried everything and put it back. All I can say is √, √!

Matt caught a huge Mahi Mahi about 3’-4’ long and about 30lbs.   It was beautiful and huge.  After they brought it on board, there was a discussion about how much 150 proof should be given to the fish (to stun/numb and eventually kill him).  I liked the fact of numbing the fish as much as possible so it does not suffer (keep in mind I have a 100 gallon salt water tank at home and have had a fish tank in my life for over 20 years).  A Mahi Mahi comes out of the water a gorgeous blue and green luminescent color and the more alcohol you give them makes them turn a boring yellow.  So, some say to only give them enough to numb them and not change their color – I say, change their color and give it a rest!  Matt took the liberty to gut and clean this fish and did it “with the hands of a surgeon” according to the others. I of course did not watch.

Our shifts are all messed up because we have crossed over a time zone or two.  So my 4p-7p shift which used to fall around dinner and dark is now in the late afternoon – kind of funny.  We decided to keep the shifts as they are since we are used to the routine and who really cares what time it is when you still have 1100 miles to go J