Day 12

The sky awoke, icy blue and lingered stretching briefly to a light shade of chartreuse and then quickly to a pale lemon yellow. Gray cumulus clouds, licked lilac, hung amidst it all. The sky stayed suspended in pale lemon for what seemed like forever until the sun at last burst through. Three more flying fish on deck this morning, seas irregularly slap our hull, and we have a school of what look like few orange fish that jet along our hull. They've been with us for two days and we now fondly consider them our pets.

We've definitely found the trades and it looks like they'll be sticking around. Winds today were 15-25 and big seas continue to roll under our keel, sometimes sending us banging from side to side. I am wedged into the navigation seat, with my right foot firmly pressed against the wall as my body sways back and forth trying to match DK's jerky rhythm.

Many of you wonder if we get bored out here and what we do all day. Today was project day. This afternoon the seas simmered down to 8-10 feet, just mellow enough for Gar to hang off the stern and fix our Monitor Windvane. He climbed over the edge and and wrapped his legs around the windvane mounted on the stern. His feet and legs dragged in the water and I kept a look out for any ferociously big waves that might threaten to throw him from his perch, all the while willing him to stay firmly attached to our moving home. After removing the pin and paddle, it was a relatively quick repair of replacing a snapped bolt and realigning a spring into it. Then it was back to the sea again to reinstall the paddle and get a lower body bath from the Atlantic. "Warm water," he said with a smile once safely back on board. Gar fixed the solar panel which wasn't changing properly and is still working on making our regulator perform as it should.

It's 19:00 and it's black out with a cheshire moon. We're sailing wing on wing now, resembling our own interpretation of a webbed butterfly. Fresh pineapple, green pepper, and chorizo pizza for dinner. I'm ready to tuck in for the night and hope for an uneventful day tomorrow. We've decided if we're ever bored on passage it's a good thing.