On the net, it appears that the other boats are catching us and/or passing us. Rumor is it's because in these lighter winds they have screechers, which give them more sail out there. We have a pretty basic rig, just the start up kit. I'm impressed how well everyone is doing! I still hold out hope on my 19-day passage bet. Well, this morning I did. Today we got an email from our friends on a catamaran that is leaving Isla Isabela, Galapagos today. Now if they pass us, we'll be sad!
All day we felt like we were drifting. We were getting waves hitting us sideways, rocking a fair amount. We had out the main and Genoa and the wind kept wrapping behind us. We were moving at 4 knots and in the wrong direction. Courage was up at night, so napping. I kept turning us southbound to keep the wind closer to 120 on our port side. When it would get further behind us, it would backwind the Genoa causing a thrashing. I was mostly trying to keep it quiet while he slept, realizing our super southbound plan was not a permanent solution.
When he woke, we rolled in the Genoa and launched the spinnaker. We are on a sharp learning curve as a crew. The spinnaker launched and was aimed at the Genoa. Having been there and done that, Cassidy and I jumped to the starboard side of the sail and pulled as hard as we could. Courage went to the port side and let it out some. We successfully got it up and didn't wrap it!! Then it was back-winding, so we dropped the main. As Cassidy and Courage dropped the main, I was wrestling the spinnaker, trying to not let it launch or wrap or tangle on the mast. Once the main came down, it took off nicely into position. Now we are smoothly sailing downwind, easily keeping our course, which we are aiming slightly north of our rum line so that if we later convert to main and Genoa again, we can keep the wind at 90-120 degrees as we aim on the Marquesas.
Unfortunately, the top 2 cars that keep the main in the track were out. This happened a few months ago, but we thought we'd fixed it. So we got the Bouson chair and up the mast. Cassidy went to drop the cars back into the track and inspect for any rusting, chaffing, damage to anything along the way. The seas were pretty calm, but there were a couple of waves/swells that rocked us while she was up there!! Fun stuff!
She came down and we had a super fancy lasagna dinner. The spaghetti sauce had 2 carrots, 2 onions, and 2 potatoes in it as well as some turkey. Layered with noodles and mozzarella (a commodity out here, even in Panama it was a commodity!) We felt like we were eating like kings. We followed it with home baked mincemeat cobbler.
After dinner, I had to go wash some clothes out on the back swim step. I gave Courage the notice that I was going outside of the lifelines, and he invited all the children to go for a swim with me! So, they all came - - some naked, and a few in suits. Of course, everyone was in life jackets. So the entire family ended up back on the steps. Cassidy opted to be in a bikini bottom rather than naked.
We had 2 ropes hanging off the back swim step. She jumped in and claimed that her bottoms were coming off. After a wiggle and a scream, she said they were gone! She was laughing so hard she couldn't pull herself in right away. We vacated the steps and threw some shorts her way!! We all went back with some shampoo and got showers, then went in.
Cassidy had a couple of blue tentacles stuck on her right arm, which left hives. We're speculating at a Portuguese Man-o-war based on the blue tentacles, but really don't know. We read about them and jelly's in general when we got back onboard. Teggy came up the other day with tentacles and a sting also. We sure aren't seeing anything floating above the surface. Other than a local sting, there aren't any other symptoms, but a couple of our lines also had blue tentacles on them also.
We also saw a bird flying overhead today. It was white, yellow beak, long single white tail feather. We are about 1500 miles from land in all directions. Where does this bird live? He flew circles around the boat a few times. The boys were running around following him. I think he was too scared to land. They'd already gotten my approval to let him rest awhile if he landed. He finally disappeared southbound. Odd. We are very curious as to where he lives. Added some excitement for the afternoon. We looked in our very limited bird book and didn't find him.
It was another eventful day, with very smooth sailing once we got the spinnaker up and started our real downwind sailing. No pounding, no wave hits, nice breeze. Great dinner, dessert, kids in bed, and I think I'm off too. Definitely smooth sailing for now.
Shannon
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