What a start! I mean not the start of the rally -- that was pretty cool too. But what a start to the crossing!! We have been ripping down the African coast in 15-20k all last night and this morning. Yesterday we logged 180 nm; today 170 nm!!! We are just smokin'!! It has been a fun ride. And since there hasn't been any reaching, no seasickness either!!!
I ran the SSB radio net yesterday for the first time for everyone and that went pretty well. At least the other net controllers will be able to learn from all of my mistakes!! :-) It was pretty fun because I cued up "Let's do the Time Warp again" on the iPod and blasted that across the airwaves as the intro to the net! I am sooo incorrigible!!
Yesterday Tim and Will caught a fish but it was not a keeper so they threw it back. This morning they caught another and it slipped the hook before we could bring it in! Grrr. Soon. We've plenty of dolphins surfing out bow wake and the full moon rising over the Sahara desert last night was simply incredible!! I had never seen anything like that. There was an orange aura around the orange full moon as the moon's light reflected off the brown Sahara sand. I can't describe it...simply incredible!
Position-wise we think we are up there with the leaders, but we really don't know. We have been sailing well. We are further east than most of the fleet. That is to try to get around a big wind hole we see developing tomorrow and Thursday. Plus we saw more wind along the African coast in the forecast. So any standings you see on the ARC website should be taken with a grain of salt. They won't begin to mean anything until after we get through the hole ourselves -- probably Friday or so.
Today is my birthday and God gave me an incredible birthday present -- the moon rise last night (OK, he was a little early with his gift!) and a 20k run last night under a full moon. Doesn't get much better than that! Everyone is having a great time. This is sooooo cool!!!!