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Charm - Marquesas Day 4



Photo is fish from yesterday - forgot to send.

We are starting to enter that blurry phase when the days blend and it seems like we have always been and will always be, on a boat in the Pacific Ocean.

I'm getting a full night's sleep and I'm still tired most of the time. We have had "confused seas" for the past however many days. I don't exactly know what the seas are confused about but it makes me tired.

We didn't catch any fish today or find any sea life in our beds (at least not any that anyone is willing to talk about) and boat life is pretty good.

I made zucchini bread and cracked open a watermelon- it sounded just like the spinnaker shredding so now I have another analogy ready to go.

Our produce is holding up well and the meal plan is going according to schedule. The only snafu is the eggs. I had some leftover from our last crossing so only bought half the total I needed. Well, I forgot that we were in the Galapagos for 2 weeks, not eating on the boat very often. That and the non-refrigeration of eggs led to some unpleasantness.

I noticed one egg had a weird grayish droplet on it and a slight crack. I went to pick it up to get rid of it and it crumpled, spilling more of the grayish liquid and emitting one of the foulest stenches I have ever smelled. I ended up pitching about 3 dozen eggs into the sea - I couldn't get the smell out of my nose and didn't want to take any chances. On my way to dump them over the rail, the boat shifted on a wave and I almost dumped the entire pile into the hatch over John's bed. That would have topped the squid in the sheets (Sunil won't confirm the exact species of sea life he was involved with but it seems likely it was a squid rather than a flying fish).

The kids had a day off from school due to an agreed-upon schedule and the need for a break. Also, it was kind of a "wave day" - those confused seas make confused insides as well. Charm School doesn't get snow days so we have wave days instead.

We are racing Nica as a subset of the overall race. Joe suggested it and they were interested. It's nice for us because the race is close so we can see them on our AIS system and can chat with them by radio now and then.

We are too far from the other boats and our SSB (Single Side Band) radio isn't functioning well enough for us to be heard bu the other boats who have two daily radio calls.

So Nica is keeping us motivated to go fast and gives us a sense of companionship. I am watching them right now and wondering why they are turning more north. I can also see their lights (it is almost midnight) which is about the only thing I can see other than the white foam of breaking waves. No moon or stars visible because of clouds.


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