Everyone asks about how Isobel does on passage. For her, there is not much difference. She plays, eats, hangs out on the bow or on the dinghy... often singing or playing with her guys. She goes to bed about 7:30 and gets up at 6. Like every kid, she demands pancakes for breakfast and picks her green beans out of the soup...

For Lara and I things are quite different. We have friends once who described a passage as "boring". We are so looking forward to our first boring passage! For us, it is about managing sleep. We are sailing now 24 hours a day for 3 weeks plus or minus. After dinner and wash up Isobel and I read a story then go to sleep. Lara stays on watch until 12 or 1 am. Then she goes to bed and I stay on until about 6 am or whenever Isobel wakes up. I stay up long enough to do a quick radio check in with another boat or two, then I go to bed for a couple hours. Mid day We do whatever projects are needed and have lunch, then Lara takes a nap for a few hours.

Of course there are the times when we have to wake each other up to make a sail change or sort out what to do about some shipping trafic or fishing boat. And then there are the errors. This morning was so beautiful that we had breakfast sitting on the coach roof while the boat zoomed along through the gently rolling sea. Isobel pointed out animals she could see in the clouds and Lara and I talked about what we wanted to do the next year. Hours passed, it was wonderful... but I had missed my nap... and so I fell asleep, Lara didn't want to wake me so she missed her nap... So when evening came I went to bed as normal and poor Lara struggled through her watch. Of course tonight the wind died so we both were up for a couple hours strategizing and putting up the Code Zero head sail and changing out the wind vane for the tiller pilot. Now at 2 am, Lara is asleep and I am on watch.

These early hours of the morning are also good for radio transmission, so I am writing a blog and downloading weather info... Not boring yet...