Hello, Tradewinds!

This morning’s sunrise:

Neptune has been kind so far this leg of the journey. The swell is friendly, the temperature is impeccable, the wind is strong and consistent and only getting better as we headed South today. Turning west again, we’re hoping we can pretty much ride this tack most of the way across the Atlantic.

We’re having some fun with food here on this leg of the trip and slowly falling into a routine:

By around 1030 everyone is awake and up on deck. Fishing lines are out, breakfast is being eaten, tea and coffee are being made. We discuss the events from night watch, if there are any, as well as any sail changes required for the daylight hours. Typically, it’s good to take down any very large sails or finicky sails while it’s dark out. If something were to go wrong or if weather were to turn sour over the course of the evening, it’s much much harder to fix at night with headlamps and spotty deck lights and sleepy crew members. (That said, we left our gennaker out last night with the knowledge that the wind looked really light and we were right so it paid off to get the extra speed. Now that we’re further south and the winds are stronger, we’ll stick with a normal head sail.)

I’ve made some yummy stir fries and we have some fun fruit on board: papaya, guyabana, kiwi. Jan makes a fresh salad most every day for lunch. I’ll be sad when the fresh food runs out. Hopefully we can make it across the Atlantic first, we’ll see. Hot chocolate with frothy milk from the espresso maker and late night low-tier ice cream (the principle where food tastes better camping applies to sailing and this ice cream in particular) have been some additional highlights.

During the day we do whatever suits our fancy, and in late afternoon, on no real set time but just when it feels about right, we come back together to discuss weather, our course and sail plan for the night, and what to have for dinner.

Things are relaxed punctuated by tense moments that just come with the territory of sailing: disagreements on our course, chaffed lines snapping, sails misbehaving or wrapping in gusty winds, reducing luffing or some other banging noise to make for a smoother and more pleasant ride, etc. But so far, we’ve taken each of these difficulties in stride, taking the first right step to reduce the severity of a situation and then fixing the problem from there. In sailing, when things go really wrong, it’s rarely because of one bad thing but because a lot of small mistakes added up. Our ability to address each issue make me more confident all the time in our capability as a team, finding our groove and monopolizing on each person’s strengths.

A special note on today: I did some knot tying practice with the help of this awesome app Jan has called Knots 3D. I now know how to tie 5 different types of bowlines (pronounced bough-lins), all useful in slightly different situations, 3 different types of knots that make a line easier to throw by giving it a good weighted end, and a few different hitches to attach a line to a closed piece of hardware such as a grommet or other ring. Below, see a picture of the monkey’s fist which I now know how to tie! Very fun.

Didn’t sleep well last night so hoping to make up for that this evening. Maybe it’s because it’s been so warm at night here in latitude 16? Either way, I’m glad I brought this little rechargeable fan. Good call, Connor. Feeling tired, but good.

E

P.S. Here’s tonight’s beautiful sunset. The strong colors are really fun, but sometimes it’s nice when the colors are soft like this. The code zero (pictured) didn’t stay unfurled for long, especially with night coming on. But we’ll leave it up in case we hit bad wind in the next couple days.