Heading Out -

So far, so good. We started out a little rough and I think Kim and I spent the first 2-3 days recumbent! But we are up and moving again. The wind is VERY light, but the seas are still stirring a little.
We are LOVING our fresh fruit from American Samoa. I know we are going to miss this!! We have cuties, apples, pears, and grapes. We haven't had those for soooo long! And now that I have some appetite back, it's great!

Yesterday we opted to fly the spinnaker since the wind was light. As Courage wrote, we used our spinnaker sock for only the second time and it went up smooth and easy. Then within minutes I saw it laying beside the boat dragging along. This is not ideal, this is how people lose sails! We managed to pull it all in, untangle it all, and get it back up. But in this wind it's flopping along at the bow in very light wind.

So today, we pulled the sock down it and everyone jumped in for a swim/bath! Very refreshing. You could jump in at the bow and come up, still at the bow. Our usual swims underway you pop up somewhere mid-ship and need to get looking for the rope to grab onto. BUT, it was sloppy out there, so there were big waves bobbing us and the boat all over the place. If you washed up and grabbed onto the ladder up front, it would pull you up out of the water. If you don't go right up, it'll then dunk you right back under. Vitality was jumping off of the front bow tube also, getting braver every day! We soaped up and had fresh fruits and veggies for lunch (and our homemade chocolate chip cookies from yesterday).

Our two other disaster relief vessels left Fiji yesterday. Because of a low forming out near Tanna (our destination), they turned back to Fiji. We are still about 1-2 days from Fiji, depending on the wind. So now we may be arriving as more of a fleet. Aneityum is our first island. It's far south and doesn't have a customs check in, so it's very hard to get aid to them. Sea Mercy has worked out a great deal for us to have customs meet us at that island, so we can go and give much of the aid we have onboard to a population hit hard and difficult to reach. We also plan to run a clinic there when we get there. Excited to see what it's like there!

Overall, doing well, drifting along, clean and fed.

Shannon