Agua Dulce - Log Day 1 – Ready, set, go!

After an exhilarating start to the rally, we are shaking off the dust from the Sahara that has coated our boat for months and heading home. At the start, there were almost 200 boats milling around until their designated time to cross the start line. Party music was played over loud speakers, tons of people lined the seawall to wave goodbye, and even a live band played while marching down the pontoons. The multihulls took off first, followed by the racing boats which included some of the former Volvo race boats. The cruising division (that’s us!) crossed the start line at 12:30. I’ve never seen more sailboats in a concentrated area in my life. Some were flying their spinnakers, but we opted not to since we knew the forecast called for higher winds as we proceeded.

So far, it’s been downwind (my favorite kind of sailing) with winds up to 26 knots. We’ve poled out the genoa and are sailing into our first night wing on wing.

Dinner was early as it was dark by about 6:30pm. Since we like to eat up top together, it’s much easier to have dinner while it is still light outside. As we travel west, it should be staying lighter for longer each night, so we won’t have to eat as early! We had white chicken chili which was one of our meals we had frozen earlier. I loved having an excuse to use some of the great cumin we got in Morocco!

More to come…