GREAT TEAMWORK AND A SHOWER AT LAST

Day 5 – July 11th

2 am, get out of the bunk and on deck to start our watch. It’s a quiet
night, but we are still making good progress. Driving the boat at night is
magical. It is pitch black and only the glow of the instruments penetrates
the darkness. The occasional bio-luminescence sparkles in the wake coming
off Turicum’s stern. It seems like she knows her way and only small inputs
on the helm are necessary to encourage her to surf down the odd wave and to
not stick the bow too much into the wind.

The day awakes to a grey sky and a light drizzle. A lonely Albatross greats
us as we are carving through the waves.
It’s almost 6 am and time to get off watch and we are looking forward to our
first shower of the trip, when suddenly a bang made us look forward, only to
see our genoa falling into the ocean. Up on the foredeck we go, retrieve the
sail from the water and up she goes again on the second halyard. Only
minutes are lost, but we are now short one halyard.

The old halyard looks a bit tired and we decide to use a new halyard
instead. After talking through it carefully we send Dave, our mast climber
up the 55 ft stick to re-run our new halyard. We take down the foresail,
turn downwind to square the boat with the waves to minimize swing at the top
of the mast. Luckily the sun is out, the seas are not too heavy and the
entire operation takes less than 20 minutes from the time we lowered the
foresail and run it up again on our new halyard. A text book operation -
great team work everybody. Once again we are on course to Hawaii – more than
600 miles in our wake and just under 1,700 miles to go.

For those worried about Hurricane Emilia: We have been carefully watching it
and it will not be a factor on our course.

After a well-deserved pancake breakfast it is now time for the shower  and
a nap.

Aloha!