ALICE MARTIN

Friday July 07, 2006 @ 04:42 PM GMT-08:00

Happy Friday

Lat:30.6600° Lon:-132.4048°  Wind: NE 10.5 kt | Temp:65° |

A special message to all our followers - we are trying to get out of this HIGH but the wind gods aren't helping, but looking at the positions of everyone else today at 9:00am - we are all in the same mess.

Last night we decided to make a strategic change - instead of following Green Buffulao (and catching her) we decided we need to go further south, so we did our first gybe of the trip - gybed over to port - first time we sailed off the wind on port on this trip. This took us nicely south and so far it might be a good decision, but time will tell. After the roll call it looks like we are 2nd behind Green Buffalo but California Girl looks to be in a good position right now.

At 11:00am today we were at N30 48' 50" W132 11' 14", 640 miles from SF and 1485 miles still to go. In the last 24 hours we only covered 126 miles, but that was not bad considering the very trying sailing conditions - broad reaching in only 6-8 knots of wind and averaging about 5 knots.

Conditions on the boat are great. We are eating well - Thank you Jaye for putting together a great menu - we are sort of following it and haven't had to throw too many vegetables away yet! The oranges suffered a little - almost half had to be discarded, because the got wet on the first day and the mold really liked that! We are all smelling better - having had our boat showers! The foulies are hanging up drying off and we are in shorts and t-shirts during the day and in fleeces at night. It is still cold at 2-4am! Still got the big kite up as we run down SW looking for the trades. It is still light airs - making for very trying sailing sailing conditions.

Yesterday we had visitors - a school of dolphins jumped around us - but they didn't stay long as we weren't going fast enough. We have a fishing line hanging out the back - hopefully some Tuna Sashimi will be on the menu soon. We have the wasabi and soy sauce!!

The ocean around us is completely empty - since we lost Green Buffalo last night we haven't seen another boat.

Today is 'tidy' day. We're taking advantage of the light airs to clean up the boat and our clothes. I have put my 'cold weather' clothes away - it's warm weather stuff from now on.

Looking at the forecast and trhe positions, its two wishes for us. One - get some wind soon, and Two - get in front of the 'Buffalo'. Lets see how it turns out.

We have no idea who is in the World Cup final - perhaps someone can reply with the final result!

Thinking of you all - the 'Hooligan' team (authored by Ian)

Posted by alicelouise | Permalink | Comments [2]