Sunday at Sea - April 27, 2014

We had a nice day, traveled really well yesterday.  Good winds.  The waves are mostly behind us, sometimes hit us a little bit sideways, but even the waves coming from behind sometimes are taller than the boat and wash the whole bottom of the boat as they pass forward.  We surf forward sometimes, but inevitably it passes us by. We had one wave this afternoon though that hit us with some sideways movement that threw things off our counter including a couple of glass objects.  The half watermelon also flew.  It was quite a hit!!  Another one this evening while Courage was on the trampoline with the kids was such a tall wave that our bridge-deck worked like a plow and just pushed the entire wave ahead of the boat, made it break over and splash the trampoline (and kids!)  I was taking a video, not sure if you can see it well or not yet.

On the net this morning, 7 boats checked in.  All moving along in about the same formation we've been.  One boat caught a billfish, brought it in, even got it with the gaff, and somehow it wiggled away.  Bummer for both the fish and the boat on that one!  Another boat had a car jump out of their main track, found some areas of chaffing, etc, so they are not going to be able to use their mainsail until it gets repaired.  They were thinking Tahiti, but another boat offered that he has crew flying out to meet him in the Marquesas, so if they email her in the next day or two, she can maybe order and pick up parts and bring them.  Sounds like that may work out.  Good to have communication helps speed things up.

We always have Sunday morning pancakes.  This morning, we went fancy.  We were running the generator and water-maker, so I used the waffle iron and we had waffles and peaches for breakfast!  It pegs the amp meter when I use it, so it's a rarity for sure.

Then we fired up the washing machine to use the water and power we were making.  The pump coming from the port water tank to the washing machine wasn't working.  So we hooked up a garden hose to the sink and filled up the washing machine.  We did the same thing for the rinse cycle.  We were filling up with water fast, but still needed the power to finish the washing machine, so we put some water to the port side tank.  Then Courage and I went to the back swim steps and used the hose for a fresh water shower.  Very refreshing.

The guys are having a great time when they play on the bow in the morning and afternoon.  They are rigged up with rope swings tied to the sails, so when the sails rise, so do they.  When the boat rocks, the ropes also tighten.  The randomness adds to the ride.

We caught a fish today, but it got away with the lure.  Totally straightened out the metal connector to the leader. We think we are done fishing for a while, at these speeds there is such pressure on the line even just towing the lure.  We'll wait until we slow down a little and are closer to the islands.  Give us better odds.

We are counting down the miles.  We did 90 miles today in a 12-hour period.  That makes for a good mileage day for us.  We have 20 knots of wind and are still going downwind with a spinnaker.  We are on our rhumb line now, not even veering north for the winds.  This evening we have 750 miles to go.  We've all been excited about our progress.  If we keep this speed or even an average of 6 knots after this, we can make it in 5 days from this evening.  If we do that, it's the evening of day 19 and I'm calling it a win!!  Keep the wind coming!!  As we were impressed with ourselves, Courage pointed out that what we have left is the same distance as Panama to Galapagos, which took us 10 days and our longest crossing before this.  Hmm, that was a bit of a damper, BUT there was another kid boat, a mono-hull racing boat, which made it to the Galapagos in 5 days.  So we can do it!!  We're kind of like a racing boat.  Courage heard the average time from Panama to the Marquesas is 40 days!  Whew!  We were 10 days to the Galapagos, then 14 thus far, at the most probably 20 unless things change, so a total of 30 days.

We finished our celebration with a key lime pie.  Well sort of.  Made with fresh squeezed naranja limones (orange limes), which are orange inside and citrusy, so not key lime, but definitely good.  So we are fresh and well fed and traveling at almost an average of 7-8 knots with clean laundry (that got rained on, so will be out all night and into tomorrow . . .)

Shannon