Saturday, 27 June. Dave & Lisa arrived about noon yesterday. Their plane got delayed and then canceled so they ended up spending the night in Miami. As soon as they arrived, I called our Customs man to clear out. Immigration had visited earlier and told me to just give the Customs man copies of Dave and Lisa's passports along with our new crew list and we would be good. The strange thing is that none of this cost us anything - clearing in and out was totally free. The only expense was $30 for the water taxi to bring the Quarantine officer from Kingston to Port Royal.

****We interrupt this blog to bring you an important news flash!**** Monday morning, 29 June, Mark, that lack luster fisherman, has just single handedly hooked, fought, gaffed, landed, bled and filleted a four foot Wahoo on his home made hand line. Fish and eggs for breakfast!

After clearing out of Jamaica, we motored out the long channel before we could fall off and head for Panama - directly into 20-25 kts winds, of course. No one got seasick, but Deb & Lisa both took Sturgeron, just in case. Deb swears Sturgeron, which we were able to buy in the Bahamas, works better than anything she has ever tried. Clearing the channel, we fell off to our eventual course gradually avoiding the reefs the cover much of the area just S of Port Royal. Finally under sail, we made 7-8 kts with a reefed main. I had laid our course to skirt a couple of shoals on the way down and this strategy worked perfectly. Just off Pedro Banks, Larry caught a nice King Mackerel which we enjoyed that very night for dinner. Later, off Serrana Bank, he caught a nice Dorado which also quickly became supper. Total mileage for the first 24 hours was 157 nm. Sunday, 28 June. A beautiful day of blue water sailing. The winds have been around 15-20 kts. all day. Seas are 5-8' with fairly frequent 12' but in nice slow swells, not chop. Otto does an excellent job of keeping us on course and the ride is quite comfortable except for the occasional wave that slaps the side of the boat and sprays over into the cockpit (we are on a mostly beam sea). Even that is not too bad as it is hot and the cool water feels good - just salty. Everyone enjoyed the day taking turns napping, fishing (no results) or just reading and enjoying the ride. Not much for pictures - water 360* and nothing else. The size of the rollers that approach the boat towering high enough to block out everything else and looking like they will drown us just cannot be captured in a picture. That is OK as they really are not scary, the boat just rises up and over the top of each wave as it comes and glides down the face. We ate a mid afternoon dinner of backed Mackerel and Mahi Mahi, and then had the most mellow of late afternoons, listening to Chuck Mangione and then Ray Charles as we rose and fell to the rhythm of the waves. We had fallen off the more of a run and the motion was ever so pleasant. As dusk approached, we had to harden up about 30* which put us back on a broad reach with beam seas, not bad at all, but not as smooth as the run. Winds piped up to ~25 kts. so we reefed main and rolled up part of gennie. Sailing very nicely. During the night, the winds progressively fell and veered so that we were beating into 10 kts with everything up making only 5 kts. and then there was NO wind and we had to drop sail and motor. Making 4.5 kts with one engine will add another day to our trip, arrival time now estimated @ 0700, 1 July, but hopefully the wind will return and we can get speed back up again.