Making progress …

We did 182 miles in our first 24 hour stretch in the trade winds, all on a port tack under reefed main and jib. Our noontime position is 19.24.69 n 120.04.5 w. We made 182 miles in the 24 hour period, our best run yet. The ICTZ begins at 11 n right now, so at this rate we will be there in three days. We’ve gone 828 nm since San Diego, and our goal is to make that 1000 by tomorrow to wrap up our first full week of sailing. We feel pretty good about our current pace and that we are making up for our light air days earlier in the week. We haven’t run our engines yet, so we have plenty of fuel to get us through the flat water in the ITCZ.

++++ Fish Break ++++ As I am typing this, we got our first hit on the trolling rod. Dan and I ran out there, a large fish was running with the line REALLY FAST while we were sailing at 10 knots, but we lost him. The good news is there are actually fish out here!

Anyway, it was pretty rough this morning with a 25-30 knot northerly with 8 foot seas and a NW swell. We had a single reef in the main overnight, and as Dan and I put in a second reef this morning, the beautiful new cover on our brand new second reef line got caught between two mast cars and completely separated, exposing 15 feet of the line’s spectra core and jamming up some of the reef blocks. Bummer (my fault). We went out on the boom and tied off the reefed sail with two new ropes to relieve the pressure on the damaged line, then went back out there later and replaced the entire reef line with a spare halyard. It was my first time crawling out the boom while inside the sail cover, and I must say it was kind of fun.

Current conditions are sunshine, 20-25 knt northerly, and boat speed between 7 and 9 knots with a comfortable motion. Jenna’s chicken enchiladas last night were a hit, and Dan is about to make sausage bread.