Waves, waves, waves everywhere, short, tall, steep chopy with lots of wind equals slow going.

Making 2kn is not ticking off the miles very fast. We have huge gulf steep waves and both engines running 1/2 throttle to make 2kt toward the destination into 27kt of wind.

Breakfast quesidillas, and slowly rolling toward St Lucia, the broken lazy jack has wrapped its self around the good port lazy jack so when the time comes it could be a challenge to raise the main.

Pretty much an uneventful day motoring into the wind @ 2kt, just trying to make head way. We could sail either straight south or straight north today, neither of which would put us closer to our destination, so we just motor on. We have one tank with 1/4 fuel, and the other with 3/4 fuel so we have burnned about 1/2 our supply to go 1/3 of the way. I know fractions are hard, but that means we have to do some sailing to at some point to make it the rest of the way. Not to worry, in 3-4 days time the forecasts (that haven’t been right yet) have the winds coming from a direction that is good for us.

Pizza and beer for dinner. Ron had brought some prepackaged “just add water” pizza dough mixes that came out perfect.

Lots of humidity in the air, so still wearing a jacket, but more to keep you dry than warm.

I may have become used to the rocking and rolling, the fact that its blowing 20kn and 10foot seas out there seems calm to me – wondering why we aren’t running under full sails, then just then a big wave smacks the boat sideways, and I am put back in to my place.

Tonight is super clear, lots and lots of stars out, lots of shooting stars, its very cool.

Crew is doing well, thinking of trade winds. Except for me, I’m dreading the next trip up the mast to untangle the lazy jack, thats not entangled with the Texas flag as well. We can raise the sail to 3rd reef position as is, but any more canvas is going to require some more acrobatics. And just as my bruises are healing from the last trip up there, and in these seas, I’m staying on deck till it flattens out some or we get a good breeze to hold un on a tack.

AIS spotted a couple of ships crossing our path earlier today, one of which was bound for Beaumont, he is going to be there on the 11th, we tried to call him on the radio and see if he could just lift us aboard for the ride, but he was long gone. AIS for those that don’t know is a technology where commercial ships and some recreational boats can transmit their data over radio frequencies along with their coordinates and speed. They can be plotted on screen that looks similar to radar, except that you know the blips are ships.

Course over ground: 252 Speed over ground: 3.0kn Total miles through water: 691 Miles to destination: 1699 kn if we were a bird.

After a tough day yesterday, we had a rough night last night with huge seas creating lots of pounding, bouncing and noise.  I know this boat is safe and hardy, but it is hard to believe there will not be any problems with the hulls of the boat.  Matt assures me that the boat is fine and that the noise is a lot worse than anything else that could happen.  I was squeezing his hand every time the boat pounded the wave and he said “it will be a long night if you do that with every wave”.  Even though we have strong winds it is not coming from the direction we want – really bad wind angle.    All day we had 22-25 knots of wind, huge rollers and a boat speed of 3-4 knots.  We averaged about 25 miles over the last 24 hours – eek gads we will never make it to our destination!  We did manage to spot 2 shipping containers – yeah “proof of life” J

A very exciting day. We woke up with a muggy pacific northwest feel. Cloudy and thick as pea soup, but there was some wind so off go the engines and we are sailing for real again, in 14kt of wind, doing a nice respectful 9-10kt to weather, cruising right along with full sails up.

Good ole breakfast tacos with some Turkish mystery meat, supposed to be beef but cooks more like Chorizo. Came out yummy tho, needed a good breakfast for today.

Seems that Christine has committed one of the cardinal rules of sailing and wished/prayed for more wind, tho she said she specified from the stern. Well we got the wind alright. 14kt became 20, so we put a the first reef in the main the ‘green’ reefing line, and still busting some good distance.

A few hours into the run, my fishing line goes off, off like Moby Dick had swallowed that small lure, ripping almost 600 yrds of line off the reel. So we slowed the boat by coming into the wind, and still ripping off line, I started to haul it in. That fish was 4000 lbs if it was 15 feet long, but of course it spit the hook out as soon as we slowed down, bummer!

So we started to fall off, to get back on course. A loud BANG! (thinking to self, what the hell?) First thought topping lift? Noticed the boom on the solar panels, quickly grabbed the second reefing line to raise the boom from bouncing on the solar panels, then noticed the topping lift was fine, so used that instead and relased the second reef. Turns out the ‘green’ reefing line where it ties to the boom chafed through while sitting in irons. A quick look and the line was still in boom, but not around the pulleys at end, so some acrobatic work, 60mins of it and the green reefing line is back where it goes.

Insult to injury, the lazy sheets the sailbag that was just fixed a few days ago tried to contain the reefed sail popped again so there is another trip up the mast at some point to re-secure the lazy jacks. Have a temporary fix in place so that we can still use the lazy jacks.

Penne Pasta Primavera with chicken for dinner after a day of putting lots of miles under our keels.

The weather tonight is impossible, I couldn’t even type on the keyboard we were getting bounced around so much. Hardly any sleep will be had by anyone. Finally on Christine’s shift, we hit 40kn of wind, so dropped what very little sail we had up, and turned on the engines to go real slow, up and over and round the waves.

Totally soaking wet from rain, sea water spashes, high humidity, everyone got at lesat a little sleep.

Everyone doing well, my bruises from the trip up the mast are starting to heal, but look hideous.

At this rate we’ll definitely miss our flights, we have 1700 something miles to go and beating to weather in these seas is rough going.

Course over ground: 253 Speed over ground: 4.6kn Total miles through water: 636 (was 1100 so 1100+636-450 would be the right number = 1286 Miles to destination: 1757 kn if we were a bird.