Day 10

Our tenth day, usually for me the last day of Transpac, but in this saga, just the beginning of the last third of the race, was spent in recovery. We started to slowly crack off and life was much more pleasant. Messes were tidied, equipment mended, and bodies rejuvinated.

The day before we entered the ITCZ, the refridgeration quit and resisted initial attempts to jury rig a solution. Chuck and Al got right into it yesterday after a first (sufficatingly hot) sleep to save our great preprepared meals. (We do have dehydrated meals.. but only as an emergency!) In a few hours, we had the cold plate frozen over. Later on, we got the sewer cleaned up an the sails packed away. This morning, Chuck got the compass remounted and rigged a wind scoop to allow sleeping down below.

We got the watch schedule back on track last night.. and made the planned switch of Chuck and Al, so we all have new people to tell the same stories too. It was a great night with the #3 up and the main full. Stars came out in full force and we searched around looking for familiar constellations, finding few as we stared forward into the southern celestial hemisphere. There was no moon to disturb the stellar brilliance, although I could feel the heat of Jupiter on my sunburn. I searched for and found my favoritely named star... Zubenelgenubi. Tonight, we should have clear skys at sundown... when the Southern Cross should appear straight ahead as we charge down towards the Equator.

As for the race, we are disappointed with our progress again today. Still with the current, and we just can't seem to fully dial the boat in for this point of sail. We switched to the #2JT blast reacher, but it hasn't lifted us up into the 10 kt range. But, for us at least, its still a long race, and we may yet find our sweet spot.

We're taking bets on the Equator crossing. I've picked tommorrow at sundown.

Data