We've made it 111 miles in the last 24 hours and all because of our Spinnaker. We hoisted it yesterday late morning and left it up all night. It's the first time we have ever flown a Spinnaker at night and it was a blessing. With the winds so light(6 to 8 knots) and coming from a different location than where our conventional sails(main and forestaysail) would have allowed us to go, it shoved us along just fine. Now we may have been going only 4.5 to 6 knots but at least it was faster than the other sails would have allowed us and we were in the right direction. It pushed us a bit too far West,so this morning, we moved the Spinnaker from the port(left) to the starboard(right)side of Zephyr and let her fly. The winds were such that it made us go farther South and back toward the way points our weather router recommended. We should get an update from him sometime today with new forecasts of what is coming down the road.

Not much happening out here today. We got an email from our friends(Paul & Karen) on GiGi that were supposed to be our buddy boat when we left La Cruz. We, unfortunately got delayed by two weeks so they have a good head start. Sort of glad we didn't leave with them as their average speed for the trip has been only 3.9 knots. We've done 4.9 so we're just a bit faster. It was the first two days that made the difference. They have had to motor for two full days to get past the equator due to lack of winds at some times. At other times, they faced 44 knot winds and some strong rain storms. I'll guarantee you their boat is much cleaner than ours. Being an Island Packet 45, they are a faster boat than ours anyway so if we had left the same time they did, we would have been lucky to do 3 knots. They think their crossing will take them a good 30 days. With luck, we might make it in 26. Guess time will tell.

The kids are adapting well. Blue came up in the cockpit again last night and took a walk forward before settling in on the stern deck for a snooze. Didn't last long as Zephyr is in a continual state of making noise as her fiberglass shifts and hardware goes bang in the night. There is no where you can go to for a quiet night sleep. It's just a bit less noisy in some places. This morning during my AM nap(got off watch at 0800), I kept hearing this light bang and then the clunk of something hitting metal. It ended up being the metal rod that's a handle for our Milwaukee drill rolling around in one of the storage spaces in the stern of the boat(right beside the berth. I dug it out and it was quiet(sort of) again. I actually had a decent 4 hours of sleep last night(0000 to 0400) before coming back on watch. With the Spinnaker up, there were far fewer bangs as the boom is lashed down.

We're now at 13 03.714N 120 18.983W and doing a course of 188T at about 5 knots with the wind from the North at about 10 knots. It's partly cloudy and getting hotter. It's 85 in the cabin and the water is now up to 79 degrees. It gets more swimmable every day.

Tracy's two cents:

Well, here we are on day 10 of our epic adventure. We decided to opt out of the morning net...we couldn't hear them, it is frustrating, so who needs extra aggravation? Not us. The spinnaker sail gives us a more side to side roll as we are going more down wind. Nothing ever sits still out here, not the boat, not the water, not the clouds. I zoomed our chartplotter out to the east and we are even with the north side of Nicaragua and up to the north we are even with Point Conception, north west of Santa Barbara, CA. It blows me away that we haven't cleared the west coast of the United States. It seems like we have been traveling forever.

For the next day or so we will be traveling toward the south then we will turn again to the west then make a left turn to cross the ITCZ. Ah, the ITCZ...the InterTropical Convergence Zone. They used to call it the Doldrums in years of old, it is were storms are born and veer up north. It is an area of convection, sometimes mild and sometimes moderate. Lots of lightening, lots of rain, then nothing....no wind, no clouds. It's a crap shoot. It moves constantly, moves to the north, then broadens out, then just the opposite. We are depending on our weather router to let us know when and where to cross with a minimum of yuk weather. We still have to fix the bearing at the top of the mast and we are counting on calm water to do so.

I think we have about two weeks more travel to get to the Marquesas.