Day 11 - Down Time At Last

You'd be surprised to know that Michael and I have had very little down time over the last 11 days at sea. This is certainly not what I'd expected. In fact I had a long list of things I wanted to accomplish during this time at sea, in addition to having great family time playing games, listening to audio books together, reading together or just hanging. Today for the first time we played a game together. It was really fun, fulfilling and relaxing, and I'm hoping for much more of the same kind of together time. But why has it taken 11 days to get there?

From emails with other boats out here as well as from conversations over the daily SSB nets, it seems that most have had the down time. My friend Diane writes that she is in a state of complete contentment, staring at the horizon, listening to podcasts, doing her own thing. And not feeling guilty about it. She says part of it is that she can't go into the hulls of her catamaran because she gets seasick so there's nothing much else to do but sit outside and contemplate life when she's not sleeping. On the other hand, we've heard reports of couples going stir crazy trying to fill the time that they are not asleep. So what's up with us?

I think it's partially that we are a full house. Homeschooling has taken up a huge chunk of our waking hours. Our kids have been getting the down time after they are done with school, but that's when Michael and I either take our naps or get to the things that must be done: cooking, repairs, sail changes, running the generator, making water, downloading and reading the weather and so on. For me, Passover prep has been a big time consumer with the cleaning and cooking. I have also spent a fair chunk of my overnight watches collecting and preparing produce for the next day's use, and writing out what's on for meals and snacks so that I don't have to be woken if I'm sleeping. Plus I spend a fair bit of time checking produce daily, but now that at least half of it is gone, there's less to check. For better or for worse.

I spent a fair amount of time early on in this voyage acquainting myself with the places we'll be visiting. We spent so much time preparing to go that it stopped at the cutting of the dock lines. I had only a faint clue of what I'd be seeing and doing once we made landfall in the South Pacific. I've now skimmed through all the countries up to but not including Australia and have reviewed the Marquesas and the Tuamotus in greater detail. I'm set for at least a couple of months, except that there is so much to see, I don't know how to choose one island over another.

With Passover prep behind us, less food to sort through and a more settled schedule, I am hopeful that more down time will open up to allow us more fun family together time and I'll be able to address more of the things on my Hope To Do list.

Stay tuned for the next blog: My List of Things To Do During Down Time on a Passage.

Day 11 Stats:
Distance: 148 miles; Total trip: 1667 miles; Average daily distance traveled: 152 miles
Average Speed: 6.2 knots; Average overall speed: 6.3 knots
Sea Conditions: Seas have been relatively gentle. Fairly significant cloud cover for much of the day, although between 4 and 7 p.m. (our own local time, which is PST at present) it was mostly mostly sunny hot and humid. This is when we tried to dry out our shower towels that have been drenched over the last two days, as well as our clean laundry. Winds today were from the ENE varying from 10-15 knots.
Incident Report: Still dodging squalls and getting drenched every few hours. Nothing else to report, except our friend who got stung by a Man-O-War is recovering nicely, another boat just crossed the equator, and another boat has been out for 30 days already (!). And we have no clue if we've hit the ITCZ yet or not. When the wind allows us, we head straight south to try to get across the ITCZ if we aren't in it already.
Fish caught: One line was in today but still nothing. Which puts our number still at zero.
Produce Inventory: Everything holding nicely although haven't checked the avocados today. Surprisingly, our basil and mint bunches are still flourishing - we've kept the ends in water. Also, we haven't refrigerated cucumbers, carrots or kiwi but instead have them in special green produce bags and they've also held out nicely.
Meals/Snacks: Breakfast was matzah with cheese, jam and/or almond butter with mango, kiwi, apples and pears. Lunch was chicken salad on lettuce with cucumber (we added pickles - yum!). Afternoon snack was virgin strawberry margaritas and banana strawberry mango smoothies made with fresh OJ (which is tasting a bit off!); we also cracked open our first can of toffee crunch macaroons. Dinner was gefilte fish (sorry, not homemade but what's Passover without it?) and quinoa waldorf salad that was excellent - with raisins, cranberries, celery, green apple, pecans and fresh mint. Happy to share the recipe from my sister-in-law Bronna.

-Barb
4 degrees 32.479 minutes North (we're getting closer to the equator!)
127 degrees 11.410 minutes West