Day 5

Day 5 4/3/06 3:30 am
Coordinates............ 12 09.241N, 114 03.692W
Heading................ approx. 240
Boat speed..............6 knots
24 hr total nm .........145 nautical miles (NM)
Wind direct. & speed....N 8 - 9 knots
Swell direct. & ht .....N 3-5 ft.
Cloud cover.............5%
Barometer...............1000 hPa

Another fine day of sailing. The winds seemed to be a bit lighter, so once again we brought out the spinnaker for part of the day. That also helps a lot to keep the boat more stable and less rolly with the swells. That makes for a very good school day for us. The boys took up their books today like pros as we started looking for new projects to do during the passage. An even better distraction is our newly adopted bird pal, we shall call him "poopy", much to the joy of 7 and 10 year old boys and much to the dismay of mom and dad who will have to clean up after him. He is a brown boobie baby and very comfortable with us. He will not hesitate to land on top of the biminy within inches of us. We can even reach up and touch his flat webbed feet. If we want him off we actually have to physically remove him. Unfortunately for him, he is not a very coordinated little fellow. We have witnessed quite a few missed attempts at landing on the boat, which have resulted in him flipping right of the back. Just before dark, we discovered he even has some friends he invited over for the night, imagine that.
Second item for the day, our auto pilot. We actually have two, one for backup. Our primary one tends to cause an electrical disturbance with the radios when we are communicating with other boats so we usually switch over to the back up for that short amount of time. The downside there is that it is not as effective or strong as our primary and tends to have a mind of it's own. Without warning, it may let loose of it's coordinate and begin to drive the boat in a circle. The amusing part of this story is that we have actually managed to go in 3 full circles before we noticed once. Without any land in sight as a reference it is difficult to tell which direction you are going. Thank goodness for GPS. I guess since we are already rocking and rolling, and our sensory perceptions are already a bit off whack, it takes us a moment to notice. We keep a close watch on it now when we use it. At that rate we may end up back in WA before we know it.

until next time,
love lisa and the boys