I can’t tell you how irritating it is to wake up to 1-2 knots of boat speed.  This is not the first time it has happened and it is more aggravating than you can imagine.  It appears that not all of our crew members are on the same page as to the goal of this trip – deliver the boat as safely and quickly as possible.  Matt has had to have a chat with the crew to ensure that we stay on course hit the best VMG as possible and keep the boat speed up as much as the boat can safely handle without beating up the crew.  It is hard to believe that we have been at sea for 12 days and are ½ way through our fuel and food and are only ½ way across the Atlantic.

We ran the water maker to fill up our water tanks again today (I love the water maker).  However, the water from the water maker is supposed to taste like regular water, but it tastes salty which means the water maker was not de-pickled properly during the first part of the crossing and/or something is wrong with one of the filers – Matt will have to fix it when we get to St Lucia – for now we will have to deal with salty water L.

I was able to convince the boys that we need to run the washer machine as we had worn and re-worn the same clothes for almost 2 weeks.  Of course I did not want to listen to the directions given to me and I ran the machine on “normal” load which sucked all the water out of one of the tanks – lesson learned.  We will re-fill the tanks and try another load tomorrow.  Even though this is a washer/dryer we decided not to use the dryer to preserve the batteries.  So, we decorated the boat with our clean laundry and managed to pull off the ‘white trash” look pretty well.

Ron cooked a wonderful dinner using part of the fish that they caught – I loved it.  Yes, you read that right, little miss non-fish eating girl loved the fresh fish dinner.

We ended up running one engine and averaged 100 miles today (our goal is 150 per day).

Beautiful day, huge rolling waves, what you might picture the middle of the ocean like.

Raised the main sail to 3rd reef position, we did have 25+kt of wind (oh and the mess with the flag and lazy jacks wouldn’t let us raise anymore sail either, but didn’t need any more sail either. Shut down one of the engines and motor sailed up and down the 15 foot swells. Tried without the engine but speed dropped too much to make it over the swells.

Tried some cereal for breakfast, special K was alright, but hardly filling. So around lunch (shortly after breakfast) made a couple of wraps that the crew split along with a cheese platter with some yummy white cheddar.

Sit back and let the boat go. Staring up every so often to see how the heck, I was gonna solve the mess above, in 25kn of wind and 15 foot seas. Nothing sounded safe or pleasant, about being tossed around on a string 35 feet above the water.

All day thinking of how to get up there safely, finally the winds were dropping into the 20s and high teens, so we were going to need more canvas. The courage had grown to a necessity. So we dropped the main, ran a safety line through the tack of the main (top of the sail) and hoisted the main back up to its reefed position. The safety line would be the guide to keep me close to the mast and not swinging wildly while being hoisted up on a spinnaker halyard. Probably took 30-45 mins to sort out the details while up there with one hand holding on for dear life as the boat rolled over the waves and the mast exaggerating every wave. I was able to untangle the flag and lazy jack, tie a new “D” ring in to the lazy jack and run a small line through the “D” ring to fix the lazy jacks from the deck – most likely tomorrow.

Christine said the winds went back to 22kt while I was up there, and the 15foot waves were a very good reason to hold on tightly. So if you are counting thats 3 times up the mast on this adventure so far, and of course more bruises were generated this time too!

So for dinner we were sailing sans engines, nice pasta with garlic chicken, and garlic bread. Fresh fruit is on its last few days, only a couple of oranges and apples left. Freezer is still stocked full with protein, lots of pasta and dried foods on board. Had to clean out some of the cilantro from the fridge as it was going bad, but fridge is still full of cheese and produce. The green tomatoes we bought ripened within 2 days, so they too are in the fridge.

Planned on sailing through the night, but when I woke for my shift 6hrs later we hadn’t made any miles toward the destination. I really should raise the rest of the main and keep on without an engine, but I’m lazy and its dark outside. We’ll raise it in the AM and see if we can get 7kt of boat speed from the 10kn of wind, but I doubt it.

Forecast matches the conditions still, so hopefully within 24hrs we’ll start to see the winds shift into a favorable direction and we can start knocking off some miles again.

Crew is good, all seem well rested tho lots of silence when book reading or just chilling out enjoying being but a small speck on a large ocean. Haven’t seen another vessel in 30+ hrs.

Course over ground: 237 Speed over ground: 4.9kn Total miles through water: 779 +650 = 1429 Miles to destination: 1628 kn if we were a bird.

We had yet another day of large seas, high winds and lousy boat speed.  We decided to change our course a bit to get better VMG but we it will get “beat up” so I decided to shower again to change my spirits and get refreshed – always works!  We changed course by about 40°, dropped to one engine and gained a bit more of VMG.  Around 4p my sweet husband decided that he needed to go back up the mast to grab the lazy jack that wrapped around the TX flag – of course we were in 8’ seas and 20 knots of wind.  Better than before, but still not optimal.  Maybe he decided he needed more bruises as the ones he got before are starting to turn yellow?  This time it only took him about 35 minutes to hike up the mast, unwrap the lazy jack, and return to the deck. I think he thinks he is part monkey as he has learned to use every limb, finger and toe to hold on while suspended from mast.  At least I don’t have to go up there in these conditions.  Don’t get me wrong, I would love to be hoisted up the mast, but only when it is anchored or in a slip!

The days and nights are totally running together!  I would not know what day/date it is today except for the fact that it is written on my journal – is that good or bad?  The routine is nice, the food has been great, the boat is holding up, the crew is getting along as well as can be – but where are the trade winds?