Good Morning! Now We are Sailing...

We are finally and solidly in to the synoptic winds, those winds driven by an atmospheric pressure gradient and not the thermals that drive coastal winds. We have been beam reaching for most of the last 24 hours in 12-20 knots of breeze. There are big ocean swells coming from at least two directions bouncing us around a lot. Morale is good as we blast along averaging almost 8 knots of boat speed. This is what we came for! We currently are carrying a double headsail rig with a blast reacher, a genoa staysail, and a reefed main. We haven't slowed below 7 knots since lunch time yesterday.

The morning's report has us clawing back to 4th place. The consensus here is that the two boats in 1st and 2nd place will not have a chance against us when we start flying the spinnaker in the trade winds and going more downwind. Right now our competition is "Between the Sheets". We both had the best day's run at 167 for our fleet. We are hoping that today will be a 200 mile day and we will find the tradewinds.

We seem to be out of the coastal marine layer and into more of a tropical sky with lots of cumulus clouds. The sun is poking through. No more whales have been sighted, but we have seen two packs of dolphins leaping out of the water around Sauvage.

Dinner last night was a very hearty minestrone soup prepared by Diana. It got inhaled by the crew with no leftovers. Breakfast this morning was simple instant oatmeal and coffee. The motion of the boat in these seas is too much for serious cooking.

-Jeff