The Wild Blue Yonder

Yesterday we travelled 177 miles, bringing our daily average to 176 per day. (Halldo, Peter wants to tell you that we did as many miles in 6 days as you two did enroute to the Galapagos in 9.5 days). Lest he becomes smug about it, the forecast is calling for an El Nino year, which means the winds are lighter than normal, the monsoons in India are a week late, and the magical islands of the Galapagos will take a beating with a severe loss of life predicted to the iguanas and bird population. As we still have almost 2,000 miles stretched out before us, it is likely that the wind will diminish and our daily average becomes greatly reduced.

In the afternoon yesterday while flying the gennaker, we had a couple of interesting incidents - three in the space of half an hour. The highlight during these strong winds and high swells, was that Shelby was a star! She didn't panic and was a much valued crew member to assist in getting the chute down. (note to Shelby's Mom and Oma - there was no danger, just lots of noise). What has been really inspiring is that she is very comfortable in the sea, no matter how much tilting (her words) it does. She now knows it is actually called heeling. She is full of life again and Doug is back to normal with them making another great dinner last night.

Throughout the watches last night we enjoyed a full moon, which didn't set until about 6:00 a.m., at which time the sun rise provided a great backdrop to Shelby and I's crossword puzzle game! We have clear skies today, the least cloud cover to date, with temperatures of 27 degrees, 20 knots of wind from the South East, with QuickStar humming along with a reefed jenny and mainsail. We haven't seen any dolphins, but see the occasional sea bird, which is amazing since we are over 1,000 miles from the nearest landmass. The depth of the water here is 2 kilometers and we sailed over section about 150 miles in diameter that was actually almost 6 kilometers deep. Certainly makes us seem like small specks in the scheme of things.