Friday, November 7, 2008

11-7-08

Here we are, past the point of no return. Our coordinates as of 1400 are: 00.22 south, 086.27 west. We are about 350 miles out from the coast of Ecuador, sailing along with some great winds. Today, it has been about 12-18 knots out of the south-southwest. That puts the wind right off our beam. We have been doing a steady 6-7 knots all night and day. That is pretty spectacular for this old, fat boat! The seas are about 6 feet with wind chop on top of that. Not bad, but we are not able to get
much done either since we are heeled over pretty far. The only problems with all this, is that being heeled over so far, our generator output is too far under the water on one side and overheats because the exhaust can't push out and then our watermaker is on the uphill side and is just sucking air instead of water. Yesterday, we were joined by two red footed Boobies. They are so cute and funny. They kept us entertained for hours, especially on the night watch. Our watches have been going pretty
smoothly, Dana has from 8-10 pm, Fletcher has 10-12, Mike comes on at midnight and goes as long as he can before he wakes Nancy to take us through the night and beyond the dawn. Usually, by 8:00 everyone else is up and Nancy can go lie down.

Dana is hoping that tonight is the last of our fresh fish for dinner. That Wahoo that we caught the first day is lasting a long time. Hopefully, all of the other meats that we had bought will still be good. It would be helpful to have a freezer, but, we don't. Breakfast most days has been cereal, lunch has been PBJ's, quesadillas, mac and cheese and other easy snack food. Dinner everyday has been that fish. It is delicious, but it will be nice to have something else for dinner tomorrow!

On another note, yesterday, Sia (who has been sick with some kind of liver ailment) had some kind of convulsions, stroke, we are not sure. She was sort of paralyzed and contorted all day yesterday. Today, I did lots of massage and my version of kitty physical therapy and she seems to be responding. All of her legs push back against me now. Her head is still a bit tweaked to one side, but she does not seem to be in any pain. She still responds by wagging her tail and purring when she is pet.
We still have not given up hope, although yesterday surely tested us.

We are looking at getting to the Galapagos on Sunday morning. We can't wait to be anchored, although it has been a beautiful sail, it will be weird to have the boat sort of level under us and to be able to open cabinets without all of the contents spilling out and rolling all over the boat! Sometimes it takes all four of us to get one thing out of a cupboard. One person opens the door, one holds the person who is trying to get something out and hold everything else in and the other person grabs
whatever is meant to come out. Sort of a Laurel and Hardy routine, but it seems to be working and gets the whole family involved in even the simple tasks!

2 comments:

cori said...

mmmmm fresh fish! So how many ways have you come up with so far to cook all that fish?! :)

You're blogs are great! It helps me to imagine you all in action!...

Best wishes!
Cant wait for Galapagos!
Love you guys!

Unknown said...

Hey, I actually read your blog and I'm hooked!!! Can't wait to see the Galapogos photos-it's on my list of the want to go to places.
My love to you all-it was great to see you guys in august. So when will you be heading towards Maui. Aloha and love to all!