Wondertime Sails to the South Pacific – Day 4

We are on our fifth straight day of sailing, which is certainly a record for us and Wondertime. We are not quite to the mystical tradewind “we didn’t change sails for a week” sort of sailing. Every hour or two we have to reef or unreef, furl the genoa, put out the staysail, spinnaker up, spinnaker down, on and on. We’ve had wind from 0 to 20 knots this past day but at least it’s mostly been from a NE to NW direction. We are still surrounded by rain squalls and the sky is mostly cloudy. When the sun does peek through, oh my is it bright and hot! We even had enough rain to use our new catchment system (essentially a small thru-hull installed in the middle of our cockpit awning). I was happy to test the rainwater that filled our sunshower 1/4 full by washing my hair. It is indeed good water.

I was talking to a friend on the SSB last night and she asked how the girls were doing. Did they get up with us in the middle of the night? Or do they sleep through? Maybe you are wondering this too. We have actually kept them on pretty much the same schedule as when we are not on passage. Around 8 pm it’s time to brush teeth, then we snuggle in bed together and read some books, then it’s lights out and they are asleep just about right away until their normal wake up hour around 8 am. The motion is better today thankfully but it’s been pretty bumpy the past few days and we’ve spent a lot of time in our big bed reading, coloring, and, ahem, playing iphone games (all educational, of course). They’ve also been coming up with marvelous imaginary games together that’s oh-so-fun to spy in on.

We’re all feeling pretty good now and are in a 3-meal-a-day groove after a few days of only snacking. It’s a good thing because there’s a LOT of rapidly ripening produce onboard.

Total miles at noon: 484
Times becalmed: 2
Number of persons onboard brave enough for an ocean swim: 1
Whisker poles broken: 1
Cup O Noodles remaining: 0