Captains log: Just wing it

Date: July 17, 2022

Time: 16:16

Position: 24.31.630N / 141.45.715 W

After this trip we should write a booked called "101 sail configurations". Normally there are only a few, but when you're desperate, you're over 1000 miles from land in any direction, the wind isn't blowing, and your spinnaker is blown, you do everything you can to squeak out additional speed. Yesterday was a spectacular day of sailing. After our celebration of half-way with that incredible mahi mahi lunch, we decided to open the bottle of port we had been saving for a special occasion. Thanks dad! Thoroughly enjoyed by all of us near sunset. 

As for the sunsets, I've been calling them Jesus sunsets. The rays of light emanate out in multiple directions. Gold bars of light, which remind me of the paintings I saw when I was a kid of Jesus coming down from the clouds in rays of light. 

This morning when I got up to relieve Nick and Joe around 06:00 (I accidentally slept in to 06:25, sorry Joe!), the wind had shifted and we needed to do a sail change. Joe was spent so he went down and went to sleep. Nick and I jibed (moved the main sail to the other side) and attempted to get some traction. Unfortunately the benefit was almost non existent. We stared with our headlights shone on the sails in silence, contemplating what we could do to better the situation. This part is a long story so I'll spare you the details, but we have a 19 foot spinnaker pole that weighs nearly 100lbs. This is not normal. This this is a monster and extremely difficult to handle. If it gets swinging, it's attached the mast and can be a violent wrecking crane. Nick and I decided the only thing we could do to better the sailing position would be to swing it to the other side. For experienced sailors, this sounds like it's probably not that big a deal, but on my boat the way we rigged a multitude of lines to it to control it out the side, it's not an easy task. 

Ultimately Nick and I were on the deck for nearly an hour and half with headlamps and the boat swinging, and finally man-handled this monster into place on the port side of the boat. It was nearly 08:00 so Nick went down for bed. My morning routine of sailing alone in the cockpit for a couple of hours was further disrupted even after Nick went down, as I continued to wrestle with sail trim until Gene woke up. Very solid routines are finally setting in. Some discussed, some just naturally falling in place. One of the ones I enjoy is when Gene wakes up he makes coffee and usually something like he made this morning which was fried eggs over coconut rice with tapatio hot sauce. Yum yum. 

We had one of our best days yesterday in terms of mileage, but it's still not an exciting number. Last night after the sun went down the wind also died down quite a bit so we bobbed at a slow pace all night long. It seems this is the new pattern over the last three days now that we're entering the trade winds. Winds during the day have been amazing. Heading up over 20knts and seas rocking and rolling with white caps (little monsters) as far as you can see. Soft as whipped cream clouds with gorgeous blue sky's to match the deep transparent blue water below. 

Previously no-one was that obsessed with counting the miles, but it's become a thing. Everyone looks at the plotter and yells out from time to time 985 miles! 952 miles! We're not looking for any special milestones, just whenever someone randomly feels like hollering out the remaining miles it's a welcome cheer (as the long as the number sounds like a lot less than before!). A little while ago we broke 900 miles and everyone was pretty excited. 

We've been trying to get more fish and today we spotted two tuna leaping in the air at our lures. Unfortunately there wasn't a hit, but we were sure excited and already talking about how we would prepare it for the next couple of meals. 

Today we received the daily briefing from the race and comments from the other boats. It looks like everyone is getting hit really hard around the islands from the remnants of Hurricane Darby. Multiple blown spinnaker sails, broken spinnaker pole, accidental gybes, and reports of 20 foot + waves and winds of 30 knts+ and squalls hitting all day and night. We certainly have not seen conditions like this thus far, but are expecting our last 2-3 days to be extremely exciting. Hopefully we will hit favorable conditions when we near the islands and will have a smooth entry. 

More to come now that conditions have really changed and the boat is wildly bucking and rolling through the daily winds of 20 knts or so.