In the morning before the wind came, we hoisted the genny back up with Mike and Dave and John’s help. We went to a beautiful multifaith blessing. We received blessings in five languages from four faiths, and even had the joy of beholding a Lion dance! After the blessings, there was a very delicious buffet and fellowship. Our clearances were completed by 11:00, and by noon we were ready to go. The wind wad blowing us nicely off the dock, so we let go the lines and floated out of the harbour behind Someday. EQ2 and Chao Lay followed. Soon all three of them had passed us, and turned our attention to the rest of the fleet. The wind was weird, coming from the Northwest at first, and by 22:00, when I came up from my first sleep, it was trickling out of the south at 5 knots, and our boat speed was a whopping 2.7 knots. We tried to augment our pace with the engine, to no avail, as each time we put the engine on, it drastically overheated. We already know that the brass plate on the water pump is broken, so there appears to be no solution to the problem except to leave the motor off and just sail. As I write this the fleet is zooming past us..so many lights out here it looks like Christmas!
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