Anchored in Falmouth Harbor, Antigua

We're feeling euphoric right now. We enjoyed a great final day of spinnaker sailing, doing mostly 7-8 knots. We dropped the hook at 3 p.m. in Falmouth Harbor under clear blue skies. We had been warned that having a pet on board would be a problem here. But there was nothing to fear. We checked the 'pet on board' box, they asked what kind, shrugged and stamped us in. That was it. They didn't even ask to see her papers! We bought fresh produce, returned to the boat, enjoyed happy hour in the cockpit as we watched the beautiful Caribbean sunset, ate a great big fresh salad and now we are ecstatic to know that we can sleep in our comfortable bed tonight snuggled together (rather than hot bunking in the sea berth on the off watch). Oh! Life is good!

I want to send a special thanks to s/v Solstice, Shirley for helping me set up this blog and John for the SSB refresher course. Thank you Herb, Southbound II, for the daily weather forecast and routing advice. A great big thanks to Mary on s/v Berkeley East for the funny daily news updates. Kudos to Jim on s/v Orinoco, who at age 71 is solo sailing across the Atlantic continuing through the Panama Canal and up to Canada. Heartfelt sympathy to Terry and Deb on s/v Wings, who on this ocean crossing learned that their home burned down on News Year Day. A very special thank you to our kids and grandkids for your love and support of our crazy lifestyle. We love you.

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Almost There

With the spinnaker up, we've been able to maintain reasonably good speed. The wind is getting lighter and the seas are calming. It's 6 p.m. Thursday, local time. With less than 120 miles to go, there is no reason not to reach Antigua by tomorrow afternoon. With less worry about conserving water, we both took real showers today (rather than bird baths and navy showers). Mike even shaved. We're ready!

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Whales!

Whales have been surfing with us for the last 2 hours. Fantastic! We sailed nicely through the night without squalls. Put the spinnaker back up this morning and even broke our speed record this afternoon. However, as evening approaches, we are losing our wind. The weather forecast calls for lighter winds for the next few days. Maybe we won't reach Antigua by Friday after all. We're going to leave the spinnaker up tonight. Keep our fingers crossed that we don't find any squalls in the dark of the night. I spoke too soon about Mike's energy level. He didn't feel good at all last night and went back on the sauce (Nyquil). He's been sleeping a lot. Good. Maybe now he'll get well.

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Better Today

It wasn't so bad today. We flew the spinnaker for most of the day playing hide-and-seek with the sun, race-the-black-cloud, and dodge-the-squall. Then the wind got too strong for the spinnaker and now we are making good speed with the genoa. We still have the swell, but it's not so confused anymore. If conditions continue this way, we should be in on Friday. Mike is still trying to get well. He doesn't have much of an appetite and he has a hacking cough. But his energy is good. He still does the night watch until 2 a.m. Then he's back up again between 6 and 7 a.m. He takes a nap in the afternoon. I tell him to sleep longer, but he can't. Man, I sure can!

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Tired of the Swell

Shortly after my update yesterday, we had to douse the spinnaker. We had squalls during the night and really choppy seas with large sloppy swells close together hitting us on the beam. We've been slamming side to side with sails slapping and snapping for over 24 hours. I'm so sick of these sea conditions! Why can't this be the flat smooth downwind trip we hoped for? The weather report shows our conditions will continue until Thursday. 20-25 knots of wind, squalls, and large swells. It's exhausting.

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Caught Another Fish

After several days of trying, we finally caught another mahi mahi. This time I tried my hand at carving it up. Yuk. I don't mind skinning and cleaning up the fillets, but I really didn't like sticking the knife into it while it was looking at me. I don't think I can do that again. (shudder) We flew the spinnaker all night last night. It was kind of scary because it was so dark and the wind was blowing pretty hard. We were flying along at 8+ knots. There is no moon at all and clouds were blocking most of the stars. It was pitch black and we even had a little rain. I'm so glad we didn't run into a squall. We're still spinnaker sailing today, making about 6 knots. As of this moment we have 650 miles to go.

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A New Year Begins...

..and I'm homesick! I would give anything to be in California right now. To talk to and see the very handsome Blake growing into such a nice and attractive young man; to watch rakish and charismatic Garrett excel in sports and school; to laugh with my beautiful sweet Paige and marvel at her intelligence and quick wit; to be so proud as we see pretty Kailyn exude confidence, skill and fearlessness in everything she does; to watch cute little Brady advance through the early stages of development from baby to little boy; to listen to entertaining work stories of fire fighters, police and school teachers from Lance, Sean and Keni; and best of all, to spend hours laughing and psycho-analyzing the world with my daughter Kimberly. Instead, I'm in the middle of the ocean with the love of my life, and that ain't bad. But we are both missing our family.

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