ALL IS CALM AGAIN

Day 11 – July 17th

The day greeted us with cloudy skies, but warm temperatures and a steady
breeze around 20 knots from the north east. Once it was light enough we
checked all our systems and found that the antenna cables for both the
Iridium Sat-phone and our single side band (SSB) radio were broken. This was
collateral of the back stay issues during the night.

Gunnar climbed into the aft locker and mounted the emergency SSB antenna.
How he managed to work in that confined space, all the while Turicum rolling
and pitching in 8 – 10 ft waves I don`t know, but he fixed it. Dave managed
to fix the Iridium antenna connection. Later that day, he also managed to
re-connect our primary SSB antenna.

Dave and team managed to come up with a much more stable and stronger back
stay adjustment system, allowing us to put all the tension we need on the
rig.

Somebody this morning said: ``This was a dark and stormy night``. Indeed it
was, we had a lot to deal with, yet we managed to sail 212 miles over that
24 hour period which is fantastic and as fast as Turicum would ever go under
these conditions.

From Terry: Thanks from everyone with my 39th Birthday wishes yesterday. We
do get your e-mails onboard. We celebrated (at 760 nm off Maui) with a pile
of traditional Newfoundland favourites from Purity. I believe we all had a
swig of Newfie Screech as well. Thanks to Don for supplying the traditional
goodies. My favourite B-day gift was driving the boat at 7 AM and then
seeing a 200 pound tuna jump 3 times off the bow of the boat. It truly is
amazing out here. Also driving the boat mid afternoon in a squall and down
the backs of 15 foot swells was great to get back on the horse since the
night before I was driving in a wicked squall and briefly lost control of
the boat. Nothing broke but it was quite an hour later as we cleaned up the
carnage and re gathered our nerves. But within an hour we were pushing the
boat hard again. Well . . . . . . time to cook dinner and watch yet another
beautiful sunset.

6 am, I am struggling out of my bunk, while Mort is preparing fresh pancakes
in the galley. The sun is shining, a few cumulus clouds are scattered in the
otherwise blue sky. It was a quiet night for both watches. Poseidon was good
to us.

With over 2,000 miles in Turicum`s wake we start a new day on the Pacific
Ocean.

Aloha.