Our ongoing tack for 1,100 miles came to an end after sunrise yesterday when the wind finally shifted to the east, forcing us to drop the main and raise the spinnaker for a straight downwind run in flat seas and sunny skies. By lunchtime the wind died altogether, so we dropped the chute and turned on a motor. Sophie spent the rest of the day cruising along at 8 knots with one engine running at 2,200 RPMs and no sails. She really wants to get to Male.

We really need to get a wakeboard.

Our current position at 3:30 UTC +7 is 04 42.138n, 077 24.261e. We covered 174 miles in our noon-noon run, averaging 7.3 knots. Male lies 235 miles ahead of us. We will get there tomorrow. Sophie is now closer to Pakistan than we are to Phuket. It is pretty crazy how small the world gets once you leave the Pacific Ocean.

Once the chute went up yesterday, I strung a laundry line across the deck and we did 5 loads of laundry. Jenna ran Sophie School inside. Aftwerwards, everyone hung outside up top, competing for a spot of shade under the bimini while discussing family weddings past and future. We have three weddings scheduled for the summer, as far as we can tell. It was a fun afternoon.

It turns out that pork and alcohol are illegal in the Maldives, so we decided to address this situation by eating all of the pork on board. While we were in Phuket we had a stainless steel bracket welded to one of our stern pulpits for an LPG bottle for our barbecue. We tested this rig last night with our first-ever passage barbecue, grilling up 3 pork loins and 2 packages of artisinal sausages. The food was quickly demolished by the crew. As Rich remarked, “If this is how we are forced to eat when we don’t have fresh tuna, then I guess we are doing OK.”

Indeed. Sophie Adventure Cruises has now added the capability for holding passage barbecues. It keeps getting better. We plan to eat the rest of the bacon for breakfast and then grill up some hot dogs for lunch. Then we will catch some more tuna and eat them for dinner. That’s how we roll.

We finally learned of the weekend’s NFL scores via an email from Travis’s wife Jenn, who will be joining us in Male later this week. Holy Moly, what a weekend of football it must have been! Seattle Seahawks, you had a great run! The Maldives are supposed to have excellent mobile coverage, so we will watch the remainder of the playoffs from Sophie’s salon. And to all of my stateside friends who promised to send me the scores and never did, please consider yourselves blogshamed!

We will post our next update when our anchor is down in Male. It’s been a great passage so far! Happy Birthday Steven Utzie!

Afterwards Afterwards