I know that once we hit land we will all miss the sound of the waves, the rocking of the boat, and the beauty of the evening sky (did I just write that?).  I know I will miss the shooting stars that have been greeting me every night for the last 8 night shifts, I will miss the sight of the kites flying and I will miss the peacefulness of the sail with the kite.  But until we get on land, all I want to do is see land!

We had a pretty little bird fly into our cabin last night and she hung out by the navigation station for at least 6 hours – what a nice surprise and blessing.

Keep Keeping On. Up at day break to set the big spinnaker, after a slow night under jib alone. Whoosh and off we went, back up to knocking off the miles.

Talked Christine into doing breakfast again, Flap Jacks for all.

After a few hours, the wind piped up, and we really weren’t able to stay on course with the big spinnaker up, so it was time to take it down. Down it came without any issues other than a little crew confusion. So a quick crew meeting, so that everyone does a defined role and not everyone trying to do all the roles at the same time. One at the helm, manages the steering, one at the bow to manage the sock and sail, one at the tack line and one at the spinnaker sheet, and one at the spinnaker halyard, opps might be one short here..

Sailed along with normal sails, 1 reef in the main, as we had just had 24 knots of wind and full jib. After getting back on course the wind was only putting out 16 knots. Now we needed more sail. Frustrating, few minuets trying to get the best out of the sails, we had course, but slow speeds. 30 minutes later, we are raising the spinnaker again, this time we can keep course and all is good.

Beautiful day of sailing, and the little Honda generator replenished our batteries in 3 hrs, so it was nice quiet day with lots of water rushing under the keels.

We had bought some ‘long life’ bread in the Canaries, the morning we were leaving. Its some vacuum sealed stuff, looked normal when we got it, took a package out today and it looked like it had been through a decompression chamber. It however made some pretty good panini sandwiches for lunch. Might have to do that again soon.

Saw a sailboat today, they had white sails, off our starboard side, then they hoisted a red spinnaker for a few hours. We tried to call them by “red spinnaker, red spinnaker this is blue spinnaker” but no one answered. We were just going to ask, “Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?”. They put the spinnaker away and headed more south than us, and just like that we are all alone out here, at least visually.

While cooking pizza for dinner, I took a look at the Ralph the salted pig leg, and it had started growing some stuff, so instead of waiting till we were sure we had enough food for the rest of the trip, executive decision to feed jaws some pork. It sunk like a rock! Pizza and some rum to celebrate under 400 miles to go.

Nice night, couple of clouds, bright moon, lots of stars, calm seas and spinnaker still up, and running on course. Very peaceful.

Currently estimating a Wednesday arrival

Course over ground: 265 Speed over ground: 8.1kn Total miles through water: 542 Miles to destination: 352 kn (as a crow).

We got up early today to fly the spinnaker and try to capture some boat speed that was lost last night during the evening shifts.  Hopefully we will get to fly her all day as I love seeing Betsy up in the sky!

The things I miss on this trip most are just plain ole being a girl, changing my clothes, doing my nails, plucking my brows, shaving, and general female hygiene.  It’s not that I am a girlie girl as I did not wear an once of make up since we left Gran Canarias, I have my hair in a pony tail and or cap all the time (except when it is drying from my shower) and have not done an ounce of my normal routine (lotion, shaving, creams, etc…) But I miss it, I miss feeling “pretty”

With that said, I had to have a talk with the boys today as I was fed up with being “pushed” out of the way. It was normal for them to feel that they have to do everything as they had to do everything for the first 6 weeks of the crossing.  But, once we got on the boat they still try to dance from the bow to the stern and from port to starboard during one sail change.  I laid down the law and said that we will have assigned duties during each sail trim – no more jumping from one position to the other.  The main reason is that we are all capable of doing each position so there is no need to act like a monkey with your head cut off.  The other reason is that when one person tries to do too much, each job is done ½ way and issues arise.  Matt backed me up and they all listened; now I have to ensure they actually act on what I said.

We saw another boat on the horizon (red spinnaker) and tried to reach them on the radio – but to no avail.  It would have been funny to have them respond to my call “Sailboat flying a red spinnaker heading toward St Lucia come in” J – Only 400 miles to go