***Life on board***
Last night we were welcomed into the Pacific by flying fish. We have seen them constantly since leaving but it seemed that last night they were particularly happy to go midnight flying. Unfortunately it landed many of them on our decks to dry out. We found about 10 crispy flying fish of various sizes (the biggest about 6 inches long) on the decks this morning and even one in the head! What a way to go. First your flying along happily through the night and then into...what's this, a window? then SLAM! right into a closed door. As you take your last breaths wondering where all the water went, you stare up wondering what that big white bowl thing is and why it smells a little weird in here. (of all the ways to go). Today on watch another fish jumped on board right in front of me and bashed into the mainsheet. He was one of the lucky ones as I threw him back. I have yet to be struck while on watch by a careless flying fish but it's good to have things to look forward to.
We have had great wind all day and by 8am this morning had made a well rounded 90 nautical miles in 12 hours running full bore through the night. We commonly saw speeds of up to 8.5 and 9 knots in bursts. Unfortunately with more wind comes more WET and it has been a bit of a wet day on watch with a stray spray coming on board every few minutes or so soaking its unsuspecting victim.
I have had good luck tracking our position using only dead reckoning and celestial navigation. It has been hard not to peek at the GPS however and I have found that I am plotting our "true" position on the same sheet at intervals to see how far off I am. SO far not more than 5 miles. The noon sight (A sun sight taken at noon) was obscured by clouds but an afternoon shot of the sun put us right on with the GPS. I also just took a sight of Venus which we can see setting in the North West here every evening as a very bright object so we will see where that puts us.
7:30pm now. Adam is on watch, Will cooking pasta. All is well.
***Communication***
We checked in with the "barefoot" net again this evening and got position updates for all of our new neighbors. Dignity is still the closest boat to us. (about 60nm to our S and E). A large pack of about 5 boats left Galapagos yesterday so there are a bunch bringing up the rear as well.
***Weather***
It has been cloudy most of the day and pretty windy. It even rained on us for about 30 minutes at one point. The sea is choppy and confused but most of the swell is out of the South or South East. Highest winds today reached about 18knots but higher winds are expected ahead of us up to around 25 knots so I suspect foul weather gear will become commonplace in the cockpit on watch.
Position (7:30pm):
02 deg 49' S
97 deg 44' W
Alan and the Crew