Well, last night, June 11th we could see some storms off in the distance, but nothing too close - we were able to have the engine off since 3AM as the wind had filled in to about 11-14 knots and had clocked around from the north to the east all the way through to the southwest. Had a pleasant night sail keeping it about 5 knots of hull speed. As of 6:30AM we ended day 6 with a total of 113 nautical miles. Not too bad for having quite light winds early in the day yesterday.
Today, Tuesday we had winds of about 11-12 knots from the southwest giving us a good sail. We woke up to seeing quite a bit of cloud cover all around us and figured we may just get that fresh water bath today. We did just that about 11:15AM today, but it was alittle more wind than we would have liked. We could see one squall ahead of us that passed from south of us in front of us, but the next one was at our stern and caught up to us. Unfortunately it was just at the time Bob was starting to look at something in the engine compartment. We were served up quite a bit of rain and winds of 30-35 knots and gusts to 40. Luckily Tsamaya handled it beautifully, but we now have a few things to fix - nothing critical, but a few chafed lines and other "odds and ends". The "interesting" thing was at the time of the squall hitting us the autopilot fuse decided to "go" so we started to go around in circles, but we were able to manually handle the wheel and keep her into the wind. Quickly we got the autopilot back operational. If you ever wondered about what we do for exercise, handling the wheel in heavy winds & seas give you a good upper body workout.
After the storm passed we had winds from the stern at 10-12 knots with some high waves making it quite "rolly". About 4PM tonight we started heading a little southeast to have a more comfortable and faster sail. We know that we need to head northeast, but will turn in a more northerly direction alittle farther east. Sailing is definitely not a straight line path to your destination!
The sky seems to be clear now and hopefully will be uneventful tonight. We did find that the squall really tested our stowing of gear and we did quite well - only a few small things in our head decided to rearrange themselves on to the galley floor so we have adjusted them to new locations. We felt pretty good about that.
The sun has come out, we have had our naps and will get ready again for another night of sailing. It looks from the sky that it should be a dry night which is fine with us. Tsamaya got her bath today and we don't need another one right away!
Sailor has adjusted well - she gets up eats, drinks, uses her litter box. We haven't seen much difference in her sleep pattern -she still sleeps about 22 hours a day!! We get a laugh watching her walk around as she has gotten her sea legs by adapting a wide stance. She seems to get around better than we do but she has 4 legs to do it with!
Our position at 5:30PM on June 12 is 25.37.95N, 54.30.11W with hull speed of 4.5-5 knots. Our total mileage right now is 798 nautical miles.
Take care & will keep you posted!! Tsamaya and crew are doing well!!
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