What a difference a day makes. The wind eased yesterday, but enough stayed
for some really good sailing. It also shifted direction, so we tacked for
the first time since race start, followed by a few more in quick
succession. During the night, the wind then really died off. We woke to
this morning's watch with the boat only making about 2 knots in fog. The
wind picked up again briefly and faded again, though we expect it back in a
few hours.
Last night, with the moon not yet up and clouds in the sky, it was black as
could be as we sailed, except for some more phosphorescence in the water
and an occasional flash of lightening in the distance. We executed a nice
headsail change around midnight, which is a lot more work than I'm used to
doing at that hour.
We're officially in eleventh place now after being in twelfth for a bit.
That said, we think we're better off than that. Other boats are closer, but
no one gets to sail a straight line. We think the wind will give us a
better line when it shows up, and the boats that are closer will have to
take a longer, indirect approach. We'll see how it plays out.
We saw a lot of the legendary albatrosses (albatross? albatrice? albatri?)
over the past few days, six at once at one point! The are pretty
impressive, huge birds that soar over the swells, hundreds of miles from
land, never even seeming to flap their wings. On a slightly less
enlightened note, I keep thinking of a cross-dressing John Cleese shouting
"What flavor is it? It's bloody albatross flavor!"
Also had a few tiny jellyfish off the side of the boat as we were barely
moving today. Tony was throwing out a bucket trying to haul one in, though
no success.
Still not sure what the position is. I was actually navigator yesterday,
entering position in the log book every hour, but I can't remember. And
while I have a lot more energy than yesterday, it still seems like a long
way back to the nav station for information you can get off the race
viewer. Maybe next post. I think we're about 38S, 128E. And we're not
further north than yesterday, so I definitely had that wrong.
That's all for now. Nap time.
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