Fly By Night

After a few days of little to no wind we are finally back in the grove moving along at 10kts.  This morning I came on deck at 8am for my watch under 2 spinnakers and our mizzen sail up.  Our watch was able to post 42 miles -- a new record for this trip among all the watches.  Whoohoo!  The fog and mist made seeing a long way difficult, but we were followed by a pod of about 20 or so dolphins playing in the 10ft swells and chop next to the boat.  They were jumping almost entirely out of the water a few at a time.  Accompanied by some billowing whitecaps and a sort of rain / fog at 55 degrees you would think we would be pretty unhappy, but since the wind was up, the mood was high.

Tonight we are doing about the same speed, but with a few reefs in the Main.  Trucking along with a very bright phosphorescence tail being kicked up behind the boat which fades off into the distance at about 30-40 yards.  I don´t know why, but it makes me think of a magic carpet ride.

Because it is so hard to see the sails at night you drive 100% by instruments.  Andrew and I have been calling this "The Needle Game" which tonight is basically keeping our bearing on our magnetic compass between 95 and 110 degrees.  Seems like a boring alternative to something like Angry Birds, but consider this: if you veer off course (especially to windward) by as little as 10 degrees you risk broaching, tearing the spin and waking up the captain and crew. This makes The Needle Game much more interesting.