Location: Underway to Palau
The wind has finally failed us. As we approached midnight this morning, the wind we were using to keep our Main, Staysails, and Flying jib up began to falter. With not many other options, we had to turn on the engine, filling the boat with an ever-present rumble.
Despite our lack of sails, were continuing to make good time! Weve officially reached the halfway point to Palau and are anticipating an arrival in about 10 days. With a bit over a week having gone by, weve begun settling into a basic routine. While watch still takes up a lot of our waking hours, most of us have acclimated to the varying levels of sleep we get.
After the early morning sail handling between watch teams 1 and 3 (parents, ask your kids which team theyre on), the day continued the way most days do. Sporadic breakfasts as people begin to wake up, pulling out the tarp once the sun becomes too oppressive, and a strange burning smell coming from the galley at lunch. Our head chef for today (and captain every other day) was Mac, and he experimented with a jambalaya recipe. Unfortunately, he burned a tiny portion of it, giving the whole meal a slightly smoky flavor (which was still good ).
As we approach the end of June (written June 28th), we have started the crunch on our first real test of sailing acumen, the knot exam. To ensure were all able seamen, weve been given over 16 knots to learn and memorize for our exam, all of them being essential sailing knots. Most students have begun to cram for this exam, with each watch filled with questions, demonstrations, and (rarely) tears.
All in all, this day has melded easily with the other days on passage, becoming a big soup of watch, meals, and classes. Its often easy to forget exactly which day it is, but in my opinion, that only makes the time fly faster.
To everyone at home reading this, youre missed. Many of us here have begun to miss home, whether its our families and pets or just our normal beds and ice water. Thank you so much for being as patient as Im sure you all are. Have a wonderful monringafternoonnight.