Hey, a daily update!
We continue to tick away the miles to Da Nang (via Luzon). We're just under
2100 to destination now, and we made 265 in the last 24 hours. Winds are a
steady 20-30 knots, with occasional gusts into the mid-30's, though last
night we were getting a lot of 40's and even touching 50. I set a personal
best in boat speed of 21.9, but there is still a long way to go before I'm
threatening any boat records.
It continues to be hot and sweaty down below, though up top we are feeling
the grip of Northern Hemisphere winter, i.e. I'm slightly chilly sitting in
shorts and T-shirt, soaked in sea water, in 30 knots of wind.
We're getting a number of flying fish on the deck at night now. When
possible, we chuck them straight back in the water, as much to avoid
stepping on them as to save them. Sometimes though, we don't discover them
until morning in a bit of Fish Patrol.
We get a lot of spray over the side, sometimes pretty substantial amounts
of water. Whoever is on the helm tends to get blamed, all for a laugh, as
there's no way of really avoiding it. Yesterday, Linda complained that I'd
gotten her. I replied that she'd said she was tired at breakfast, so I was
just giving her a little wake up. Later that day, she was doing some work
making sail ties, and she had a bucket with her. I was on the helm as she
finished, as she started coming back to the helm (which is where we store
sail ties), carrying the bucket. "Part of my feels like that bucket is full
of water, and you're going to throw it on me", I joked. "At least it's
fresh", she replied, and threw it right in my face! Good laugh for everyone
on deck.
We've had a little duel with Garmin for the last few days. They were rarely
more than a few miles away, cutting back and forth, and often within a few
hundred yards. We couldn't quite close, but they couldn't pull away either.
Well, today they put up their spinnaker and took a more downwind angle.
We'll see how that plays out. We're still making good time and headed
exactly where we want to be. It is pretty cool though, in the middle of a
race thousands of miles long, in the vastness of the ocean, to have two of
us converge like that for a while. I look forward to being on the pontoon
to welcome them into Da Nang!
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