A giant flying fish met his demise on our deck last night. Boy do they stink.
We decided we aren't starving enough to even consider trying him for breakfast.
Mom (Kim) said she would forfeit her turn to catch the next fish to Finn. It is
too rough for me to want to fish but Finn is badgering me incessantly to "set
the lines". Those of you who know Finn know that he basically never shuts his
mouth and is always talking or humming or generally making a lot of noise. For
the longest time his go-to song was the Superman theme and he would hum this
continuously. Now he mimics the scream of a reel with a fish on. Then he
hollers "FISH ON". As I am writing this he is singing "What do you do with a
drunken sailor?" We are blaming Uncle Bruce for this behavior. Finn just came
over and asked "Dad, why is it so hard for a four year old to be patient?"
Anna is having a great passage. Mom isn't pushing hard on the school stuff but
Mark is sneaking in a lot of math as they work out navigation problems together.
Anna is reading to herself a lot and both Mark and Kim have been reading some
interesting books out loud to the kids.
I keep myself busy by waiting for heavy seas to do projects like emptying the
toilet contents over the side and lugging the generator around the deck as well
as other non- interesting projects.
A couple days ago Mark and I re-worked the halyard system for Big Blue. We
thought about the problem independently for a few days then worked out a
solution together that was better than either had come up with alone. We have
tried out the new rig once and need to do some adjustments but I think we are on
the right path.
The trade wind pattern we are in has helped us gain some speed but it also makes
huge waves. This is partly because the ocean water is so warm here that it has
much less surface tension allowing for waves to build very quickly relative to
the wind strength. We are staying dry so far but it is hard to move around the
boat. The wind is projected to increase a bit today and then back off. We are
hoping we will be able to finish the trip with the genoa/Big Blue combination
which gives us nice speed and stability. We are currently using the genoa alone
which is simple but not as balanced so we really roll. Too much wind for Big
Blue right now.
We are still using UTC time which was local time in the Canaries. The problem
is that the sun now rises at around 9:30AM and my crew is starting to get
weirded out. I think I will continue this human experiment until we cross into
the time zone for Martinique and then we can reset our local time to that.
Until then I am enjoying watching the effects. Finn simply evolves with the sun
and gets up and goes to sleep relative to the sunrise and sunset. Everyone else
keeps trying to "figure out" if they should be tired or not.
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| New mittens from Mom! |
Current Position:
11:30 AM UTC
15 Degrees 24.914 N
46 Degrees 26.326 W
Course 272 Degrees True
Speed 6 kts
Wind 20-25 kts out of the East
Genoa "no pole"
Bob, Kim, Anna, Finn and Mark
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