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.

Finally a spinnaker run. Carried the big asymmetrical kite all night long boat was really moving. We put a pretty good dent in the miles left to go, knocked out a 200+ mile day. At daybreak when you could see everything, it probably wasn’t the smartest move, to run the big kite all night. I saw some 25kt winds, and Marvin saw 27 as dark clouds passed in the night. This morning when a 26kt breeze blew through, I looked up to see the unstayed top of the mast bend by what seemed to be a foot or more. DOH, that’s enough of that, we need that mast to hoist any of the available sails, so we down sized to the symmetrical spinnaker that runs at the fractional (3/4 of the mast, instead of the very top) point where there are stays to support the mast. Kept pretty much the same speed and was more forgiving in the rolling seas that were building.

Bacon and Eggs for breakfast after the spinnaker change.

Awesome run, making about 10 miles and hour most of the day. Little rain storm to wash off the boat, no other boats in sight all day.

Pasta with meat sauce, basically goulash with what ever looked like it would go. The quantity that I cooked, I thought for sure there would be leftovers, guess the crew was hungry even though no one really had a preference for dinner, double helpings were had by all.

Even Mr. Dorado decided to stop by for dinner, as I’m plating up the grub, the fishing line goes off. Pause, turn off stove, attend line, bring fish aboard, resume dinner. This time I learned how to filet the fish, our freezer is stocked with lots of Dorado, guess we’ll have to have some for breakfast, or at least for dinner tomorrow.

Woke up for a little early for my shift, as the boat was zoomin through the water. As I’m walking up, AIS collision alert goes off, I have it set on 10 range so any boat with in 10 miles goes to alert. No big deal, its 10 miles crossing in front of us. We are doing 14kt of boat speed in almost 30 knots of wind. Way over the night time rules that were setup before dark. So its time to take down the small symmetrical spinnaker, down it comes, nothing too difficult but the tack line goes through the block and is running under the boat, Marvin quickly pulls that in, but now the tack line is no longer on the starboard of the boat, we’ll have to fix that in the morning. Anyone know how to push a noodle through a 50 foot straw? Thats where the take line goes.

Running under jib alone, we are still making some 8kt times, but also the wind is dying back down, if we had the tack line, might consider putting the small spinnaker backup.

Crew is dreaming of Caribbean sun, well we already had that today, nice and hot in the sun, cool in the shade. Also enjoying knocking off miles as this is what the winds were supposed to be like for the whole trip, not just the very end.

Course over ground: 258 Speed over ground: 9.1kn Total miles through water: 719 Miles to destination: 988 kn (as a crow).

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