April 28, 2014 -

April 28, 2014 -

Our clocks indicate that it's 4-28.  Isn't it?  Doesn't really matter I suppose, they run together.

We had a great day for movement yesterday!!  In the evening, we had winds up to 25 knots behind us - - and that's measured wind, not true wind.  Adding our rate of travel it was 8-10 knots at the time, so we had up to 35 knots of wind!  We were traveling up to 15 knots, especially as surfing down waves.  The waves were getting bigger, at least 10 feet.  Our boat would disappear (not the mast) between the waves.  Since we were really moving, Courage turned us straight downwind (180 degrees) rather than the 120 degrees to the port so that the waves weren't rocking us sideways and we weren't going to backwind the spinnaker at that rate.  This takes us somewhat off our rhumb line, but is safer and smoother.  Yesterday was a record day for us - 190 miles in 24 hours!!  I was impressed.  We've slowed down dramatically today, but still 6-7 knots much of the day.  I think we can arrive in 20 days easy, but 19 will need another banner day.  This evening we have 570 miles to go.

When I woke this morning, we were heading off our rhumb line by quite a bit.  Cassidy was up and had been on watch since 2:30 am.  I asked why we were going that direction.  She didn't know.  She said that at about 5:30 Courage came up in a panic and cranked the wheel.  She wasn't sure why, the sail was fine, the winds hadn't changed.  He does have very vivid dreams sometimes, especially when he's on watch and not sleeping much/well at nights.  He changed it back some and went to bed.  She wasn't sure where it had been or where it should be.  He and I woke at 6 am when the spinnaker was back-winding and flapping.  Cassidy turned the wheel then to realign us.  Despite all these strange events, it seemed we'd been 20 degrees off our line for longer than that.  Who knows, big winds, dark nights, and crazy dreams, but I took a 20-degree left turn when I woke up and we got back on track.

Only 7 boats checked in on the net.  Cassidy was the one that checked in for us.  She could only hear one other boat and another faintly.  The other boat positions were relayed for her.  Everyone threw up big numbers last night!!

I laid Vitality down for nap, took Valiant down to cuddle with him for his nap.  Valiant was screaming, so we woke Courage.  I told him Vitality really needed her nap today.  He got up to have lunch and found Vitality in ‘Costco’.  She had found her way to the sprinkles we use to decorate cupcakes and helped herself.  She has also found our gummy snacks that we use for "French for Gummies" that were for another month and tucked away in a bedroom.  I'm thinking of changing her name to either "Stir Crazy" or "Cabin Fever".  Intrepid came up with a plan at dinnertime tonight, "we need to set up a surveillance on her.  And we need to make sure she doesn't see us."  So they want to set up a spy schedule to help manage her.  

Sheryl - for a boat we are large, for a living space for 8 people, we are small.  But there are many places on here to "get away" and have personal time.  Silence with children is never a good sign even though it may feel welcome at the time.  The good news is that all her activities are safe, just destructive.

We did not fish today; we cannot pull in lures at this speed and force.  So our only hope is for a nice Dorado, sierra, tuna or something to jump and land on our deck like the flying fish do!  Although today we had 6 flying fish and the kids have been playing with them all day.  Who needs Wal-Mart when you have fish landing on your house?  We have rules about the fish staying outside, but Valiant doesn't always comply.  I hope we don't lose one inside only to rot and find later!

We had a nice burrito dinner with the ground beef I canned in January.  It seemed good, the variety and protein at dinner was welcome!!  We cut up our few surviving tomatoes and a pepper.  I didn't watch, but Courage mentioned someone not eating it so that someone can manage the boat and kids if there is an issue with the meat.  I volunteered to throw myself on the sword and eat it.  Not sure what he decided.  I'm not worried, the seal was tight, the meat smelled good, and it tasted good!  We'll know for sure in 6-8 hours.

The kids were stoked this evening.  We set the clock back an hour, so they got to watch a movie.  We've done that a few times so that we can keep with the sun and be on schedule when we arrive.  We just arrived at Pacific Standard Time according to our clock.  Not exactly sure what time zone we're heading for, but we'll be based on the sun I guess.  This will also help my 19-day arrival plan, eh?  Turn the clocks back a bunch more times.

Shannon