All well here after a little trying and fairly slow Wednesday night. Stuff all breeze so we opted to motor for a while in hope of getting through a very large dead patch, which we eventually did by around 10 am. Started today slowly with a shy kite up in W-NW winds of around 5kts and now steadily building. We now (10 pm) have around 10-12 kts from the north west and doing just over 7 towards Verde. Our on going plan is and has been to sail at angles that give us the best speed and heading taking into account that we need to get south before heading too far west and we need a bit of breeze to get moving, although we are all so far impressed with the boats performance even in reasonable light winds for'd of the beam.
Life on board is very comfortable and everything works extremely well. Food is fantastic thanks to Nigel and we are doing our best to make some impression on the provisions - only another 49 peppers to go!!
We have two budding fishermen, one that can fish and one that is on L plates. So far several big strikes and one decent fish caught and eaten for diner last night after a late evening catch. On the first day we hooked up a massive dorado and after a good fight, Paul lost him which was probably just as well as it would have been way too much for the four of us and probably difficult to get on board, subdue, clean and prepare. We are however well armed with soy and wasabi and expect to catch fish regularly.
Have had the 3/4 ounce symetrical spinnaker up for around 2.5- 3 days and working well, so far easy to retrieve with the "kite snuffer" although we have had several repairs to make to halyards , sheets and braces after chafing. Luckily we managed to get a stitching awl, some leather and several other spares before we left, so running rigging is all in good shape an should remain that way. The electronics on board along with the auto helm make navigation and long stints at the wheel a lot easier than expected and are a joy. We will have a lot of opportunity to fine tune , tweak and make the most of them.
It looks like chicken tonight for dinner and possibly a guackamole to start with as we have several avacados that are ripening and need to be eaten. Hopefully the wind will stay stay tonight and we are able to get our daily averages back up.
Nick