Atlantic Crossing Day 9

At 0930 UTC our position was 20.26.70N, 30.40.23W.

Still under spinnaker we are at the start of our 9th day at sea. This also means 9 days since our last shower!! We have plenty of water still as our water maker has been working great for us whenever we have the extra power from the solar panels. However, I think no one is inclined to have a cold shower since we only make hot water when we run the port engine and that last happened on January 12. I dream of how amazing that first hot shower is going to be.

As for the food department, we have been enjoying some great meals on board. Unfortunately none still include any fresh fish, but I am confident we will have our day. The fresh fruit has not held up great and we have had to throw out a number of oranges. The bananas are now at the point that I need to start baking banana bread. The pears are finished. And the one remaining mango needs to be eaten now. The apples are the only hold out. So sadly I think by the second half of this trip we will have to rely on canned fruit, which is never as appealing. The fresh veg is going alright. We have a ton of tomatoes that need to be eaten NOW, so tonight my plan is to make roasted tomato soup. The peppers and green beans (thank you Kylie for the paper towel trick, it is working beautifully) are holding up well. The carrots did not like being unrefigerated the first few days so we tried to salvage what we could and found room for them in the fridge. And of course the cabbage, onions and potatoes are going to be all we are eating in the end along with our canned veg stores. However, we are far from going to starve with the amount of frozen meat, grains and beans we have on board.

As Jeff would say, there has been "no drama" with our sailing. Darryl and I keep waiting for the shoe to drop and for something dramatic to break, but we will enjoy each day when that doesn't happen. The fix we made to the tow generator is holding up beautifully so far. We switched around one of the guy lines for the spinnaker when we noticed wear on the one splice. We had to reconnect the main halyard when a shackle came lose. Tightened yet another leaky connection on the newly installed water maker. Fixed the stop switch for the port engine (this was broken before we left). Otherwise, we just sit here watching the spinnaker sail around and wait for the reel to spin on the fishing line.

We are just under 400 miles away from the halfway point. Still experiencing following seas and winds. Dolphins paid us another visit again yesterday but still no boats in sight. All is well with the crew!



The Maple Crew