Let's sing it together... - April 27

Solis log: 32 56'38N 175 21'03W

It goes something like this..."3 flying fish, 2 purple squid, 2 white albatross and a partridge in a pair tree". Stupid joke but thats what were up to. I come up to deck in the morning to find them. This morning was the third time for me to find a dead flying fish on deck. Two of them were in exactly the same spot. Right bow. Two purple squid have come up too. Funny thing is, they were both in exactly the same spot too: left aft cockpit. The other flying fish was not coordinating with his buddies, he was up on the left aft deck.

Well the weather. I'm guessing that because were out here in the middle of the pacific, the updates can be slightly off. Anyway, our no wind situation turned into an excellent tail wind at around sunset. It was a funny thing. There was very little wind yesterday so I had up about all the sail we could put up. At around sunset there was a lightning storm building on the horizon, moving towards us. There was supposed to be a cold front in front of us today, but did not specifically show it crossing over our heads in the report. Well, it crossed right over our heads. When the sun went down and we had all that sail up, the wind suddenly started to pick up. But not much. Then it started to sprinkle and I thought, that big nasty lightning and cumulonimbus cloud formation is going to hammer us. Forget about the weather report, I better get up there and drop some sail before it gets nasty. As I was putting on my foul weather the wind and rain rapidly began to build. By the time I got on deck it was pouring rain and the wind was blowing harder. The waves also started picking up. The wind was to our back. With that much sail out the self steering wind vane was just about to have its' capacity exceeded. Yesterday was so nice Dad had gotten some strength back so it was one of the first times on this trip he made an attempt to help with "sailing" Solis. My gosh. By the time I was on the foredeck we were punching through waves with water almost up to my knees. I was pointing with my headlight screaming commands to loosen, tighten, release, lock, etc. It was exhilarating, actually really the kind of stuff I like :=)
As soon as we got the spinnaker pole down (a 5 inch in diameter probably close to 20 long 50+ pound aluminum pole) dad went back down below. I probably spent the next 20 minutes fiddling and tuning the rig for the night. When I came down Luke had prepared one of our favorites for this trip: mac and cheese with coconut milk and doused in Tabasco.

So much for that lull in the wind for 5 days. It's blowing quite nicely today and the weather is warm and sunny. The best combination! Today we will start heading a little more south (I know I said that before, but I think I mean it this time) and try and ride this south west wind for the next 4 days.