Mid afternoon ramblings....

Everybody is sleeping. After a rolly polly night, with a midnight sail change, things have calmed and the crew is taking this opportunity to rest. We press on with 8 knots of wind basically from the east. The way we want to travel.

While they are sleeping I just had my own personal visit from some Spotted Dolphins. I very much enjoy the visits from the Dolphins, it just adds to and brightens the day.

We've seen whale spouts in the distance, I keep my eyes peeled for an actual breech. I wonder how birds get so far away from land.

We found a rip in our spinnaker two days ago, we fixed it with sail tape. Then later in the night the halyard (the line that holds the sail up) chafed through right above the head of the sail. All 4 of us were up at 4 am dragging this huge sail out of the water. I think we can be proud of how we handled that unfortunate incident. We secured the sail and all the lines safely and quickly. We are not sure what the cause of the chafing was and it will require a trip up the mast by captain Joe. We prefer not to do this at sea.

Most of the fleet has either arrived or will be arriving Horta in the next couple of days. We are still 4-5 days out. The crew is in good spirits, well rested and I must say well fed. We didn't buy too much food for this excursion!