Oceanic

The moon is shining behind the glowing clouds and it’s not too dark out. Where the layers are thinner the light splotches are reflected on the ocean all around us. They look like little private parties- some we are dashing towards, others we run from, and others we just nod too as they brighten and fade.

Our 5th night out is coming to an end as I took over the helm from Leo who just says “I don’t know” when I ask him for his secret to driving so fast and smooth in the dark. We have the main on a single reef and the jib all the way out which seems pretty balanced for the conditions. Wind is ranging 14.5-19kts and driving isn’t hard but I turned on the autopilot for a bit to type anyway.

Yesterday we took it kinda easy sailing and Greg worked out a charging issue which wasn’t easy for him. My understanding is that the most likely issue was that a connection for monitoring the alternators output was malfunctioning that led to the batteries not getting charged up properly when we ran the engine. It’s been solidly cloudy since we left San Francisco so we haven’t gotten what we’d like to out of the solar panels. 

Yesterday morning Gavin found some little squid and sail jellies on the deck. Griffin was fascinated and examined them thoroughly. We also jibed yesterday morning. After being on the same board for days having the reverse angle of heel felt nice. Griffin had to give up his reign of the leeward and therefore cushioned bench and move over to starboard. He now thinks that laying down all day is a perfectly acceptable activity for a 12 year old. 

As I’ve been jotting this down the light behind the clouds is fading and there’s a rim of light at the horizon towards the east, it’s almost 5am. It’s only blowing 15 now and boat speed is 9, I just added 10 degrees to the auto pilot to steer to 134 true wind, a compass heading of about 130. No vessels on AIS, it feels super comfortabl out, and some Pink Floyd came up in the random shuffle of tunes playing in one ear. It’s awesome out here about 800 miles directly west of the Baja peninsula.