The grib files are downloaded each night and are reviewed and discussed – the problem is they are not accurate.  The file states that the wind is coming from one direction and we are experiencing something totally different.  Right now we have pretty big seas, steady and strong winds and decent boat speed, but that is supposed to change and often does throughout the day.  A discussion about head usage is always a gross topic, but a necessary conversation.  We have 2 different types of heads on our boat – one is the Vacuflush and the other is a standard pump type head that uses salt/sea water (you pump dry, then wet, then dry, then wet).  I find that if you repeat this process of dry/wet at least 3 times you can not only remove the contents but you can remove the majority of the smell.  However, the pump type head is always going to smell more than the Vacuflush as is uses salt water and does not work as efficiently or have the same sort of “storage”.  Ensuring that everyone is on the same page on proper usage of each head is imperative – it will save you from uncomfortable discussions, smell and worse.

Boys are still trying to catch something – lots of lines out and nothing jumping on the hook.

We awoke to “engine” problems – evidently the engines are not charging the batteries and the crew was up in “arms”.  I explained the problem to Matt who evaluated the situation, discovered the problem, fixed it.  I love that about Matt – he is able to look at a problem head on, think it through and fix it – calmly.    The best thing about the engines running and batteries charging is that we all got to take hot showers – it was the first time since we left the Gran Canarias.  Even though I had to learn to balance my back side against the escape hatch (yes, I was shooting the moon at Flipper) , I was able to wash my hair, shave my legs and refresh my body – it is amazing how much I miss a good shower. Of course, it was turning the water on, then off, then on, then off.  It is hard to clean long hair in these conditions – perhaps a shorter cut may be in order?

We saw our first sail boat today, but it was so far away I could barely make it out.  Although it has only been a few days since we left “civilization” it feels like a lot longer.  Seeing this first sail boat reminded me how “small” and “lonely” we are out here.  Knowing that there are over 500 boats making the same course would give one the impression that we would see more boats – but nooooooooooooo.

Early post today, wide awake after my shift, and after having drug a fishing line for most of 470 miles it was the first time the reel had made a peep. Course only there was no fish to be landed, just the lure’s skirt was hiked up by the waves – and something did try to take a bit ouf the skirt, so back overboard for more dragging across the pond.

Lets see, we had quesidilas (I’ll figure out how to spell that later) for lunch with some left over turkey, think we are going to make some turkey noodle soup with the rest. Then we had a big ole batch of Carroll Shelby’s Chili, made with Turkish mystery meat, and corn bread – pretty yummy only a small portion of chili left for some late night snack.

Okay the weather has been delightful, sunny, brisk – when the sun is out its almost shorts and t-shirts, at night its still a bit cold – need jackets and long pants. This was supposed to be a trade winds run, meaning all the winds would push us to the islands, but so far we haven’t found the elusive trade winds. We were heading south to find the, but the forecast says they aren’t there, they also aren’t north, there are 2 low pressure zones on the forecast that says we should have no wind at all. I should love the forecast to be correct, because what we have here is 15-20kn right out of the west, of course that’s where we want to go. At this point its looking doubtful that we’ll be on time to St. Lucia to catch our flights – good thing they are fully changeable fares.

While everyone was asleep, I tacked the boat to head more north, with a little help from the autopilot as the jib sheets are about 20 feet apart, and you have to release one side before pulling the other back in. All in all pretty sucessful, the next one actually went smoother, told auto that I needed more time, and he slowed down – so it worked great, now heading back south of west-ish.

Too much sailing not enough electricity. On my shift, we were humming along quite nicely when I came up for my shift, the batteries were down 200ah, out of the 960 that we have on board, so we needed to put some back. Ron and I tried to get the little Honda generator plugged in and running, we were successful, but the electricity didn’t want to go in to the batteries that way, we’ll figure that out in the daylight. So we are motor sailing with one engine just to charge the batteries back to 4 dots on the link charge controller.

A little excitement, the crew on the other side of the boat got in a little heated discussion on the proper use of the toilet facilities, one liked the window open the other didn’t like the salt spray that sometimes made its way in to the latrine. Lasted only a few minutes and no feathers are ruffled.

Crew is good, everyone seems to be sleeping their fair share, as we bounce our way across the at Atlantic.

Course over ground: 235 Speed over ground: 6.4kn Total miles through water: 470 Miles to destination: 2434 kn if we were a bird.