A very exciting day. We woke up with a muggy pacific northwest feel. Cloudy and thick as pea soup, but there was some wind so off go the engines and we are sailing for real again, in 14kt of wind, doing a nice respectful 9-10kt to weather, cruising right along with full sails up.

Good ole breakfast tacos with some Turkish mystery meat, supposed to be beef but cooks more like Chorizo. Came out yummy tho, needed a good breakfast for today.

Seems that Christine has committed one of the cardinal rules of sailing and wished/prayed for more wind, tho she said she specified from the stern. Well we got the wind alright. 14kt became 20, so we put a the first reef in the main the ‘green’ reefing line, and still busting some good distance.

A few hours into the run, my fishing line goes off, off like Moby Dick had swallowed that small lure, ripping almost 600 yrds of line off the reel. So we slowed the boat by coming into the wind, and still ripping off line, I started to haul it in. That fish was 4000 lbs if it was 15 feet long, but of course it spit the hook out as soon as we slowed down, bummer!

So we started to fall off, to get back on course. A loud BANG! (thinking to self, what the hell?) First thought topping lift? Noticed the boom on the solar panels, quickly grabbed the second reefing line to raise the boom from bouncing on the solar panels, then noticed the topping lift was fine, so used that instead and relased the second reef. Turns out the ‘green’ reefing line where it ties to the boom chafed through while sitting in irons. A quick look and the line was still in boom, but not around the pulleys at end, so some acrobatic work, 60mins of it and the green reefing line is back where it goes.

Insult to injury, the lazy sheets the sailbag that was just fixed a few days ago tried to contain the reefed sail popped again so there is another trip up the mast at some point to re-secure the lazy jacks. Have a temporary fix in place so that we can still use the lazy jacks.

Penne Pasta Primavera with chicken for dinner after a day of putting lots of miles under our keels.

The weather tonight is impossible, I couldn’t even type on the keyboard we were getting bounced around so much. Hardly any sleep will be had by anyone. Finally on Christine’s shift, we hit 40kn of wind, so dropped what very little sail we had up, and turned on the engines to go real slow, up and over and round the waves.

Totally soaking wet from rain, sea water spashes, high humidity, everyone got at lesat a little sleep.

Everyone doing well, my bruises from the trip up the mast are starting to heal, but look hideous.

At this rate we’ll definitely miss our flights, we have 1700 something miles to go and beating to weather in these seas is rough going.

Course over ground: 253 Speed over ground: 4.6kn Total miles through water: 636 (was 1100 so 1100+636-450 would be the right number = 1286 Miles to destination: 1757 kn if we were a bird.

I could not believe my eyes this morning – there was another boat way far off on the horizon!  It is always exciting to see another boat (as it is for everyone else) because it is proof that there is another form of life out on this big, blue water road.  It is very easy to let the “smallness” overwhelm you as there is so much water in every direction and no boats, no planes, no cell phones and very little communication.  It is really hard to describe this feeling other than “smallness” and seeing another boat can break that spell.

We got some wind today, through up the main with the first reef and were ticking off the miles toward St Lucia when BOOM – the reefing line broke (too much load on her).  Once the reefing line broke, the sail filled and popped the lazy jacks, dropping the boom on the cockpit cover (barely missing our solar panels) and blanketing the starboard side of the boat with the main. It was a frightening sound, experience, and sight.  It took us over 1 ½ hours to re-rig the sail, sail bag and lines and somewhere in the middle of all this process we managed to get the fishing lines wrapped around our props and a printer leaked toner all over the bottom of the closet and some of my clothes – tough day.

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.