Good morning all, this will be a morning update and I will attempt to follow up with it, an evening update as well.
***Life on board***
8:30am- Adam is on watch, Trevor and Will are sleeping. The boat is making great progress south on a heading of about 215 degrees. We're just watching the miles count down toward the equator now.
Bobby, the bold boat bird, banished himself from the bow at about 8am this morning. He made several "false good byes," reported Trevor, whereby he launched and then promptly returned 3 or 4 times before finally deciding that it's what he really wanted. He will be missed.
It appears (knock on wood) as though this evening may be our last one on the open pacific before making landfall. If this wind holds out (knock on wood again) we could make landfall in as little as 16 hours putting us off San Cristobal at around 4am in the morning tomorrow (Tuesday)were we would wait for sunrise to make our final approach. Of course, you didn't hear me say that since (at least I think) it is pretty unlucky or, at the very least useless, to try and forecast anything relating to future progress or estimated time of arrival. We shall see.
***The Boat***
All is well with the boat. Batteries are charging at about 5 Amps/hour and holding 85.7% of full with the help of sun and wind. The head still works, the lights work, the stove works, nothing is out of place.
***Communication***
We made contact with the Panama Connection net over ham radio on a frequency of 8.107Mhz just a few minutes ago and relayed our new position. We also were updated by Gemini who experienced similar winds last night and is now making great progress as well. They reported their position as almost exactly 60 miles due East of us.
***Weather***
8:30am- The weather this morning is clear and sunny with a cool SE wind at around 12knots. Last night we had a great amount of dew on deck and everything was wet to the touch from it. Almost as soon as the sun went down last night, our long awaited wind shift came and we have been laying a course well south of our layline to the Galapagos ever since. We will take full advantage of the shift until we are sure we can comfortably point for our destination. Of course, we hope this wind keeps up throughout the day.
Position (8:30am):
00 deg 22' North
87 deg 50' West
Evening update to follow
Alan and Crew