It is just past 0100 ships time, and in the past hour or so I watched Aldebaran, the red bulls eye of Taurus rise, followed by the familiar but unfamiliar bright stars of Orion's belt, looking not quite right, Somewhere in this world it is September, and people are going back to school or work, looking forward to crisp autumn days. But for me, the constellation of Orion is upside down, and instead of chasing Taurus across the sky from left to right, the upside down Orion is trekking across the sky from right to left.

My poles are reversed on this first full passage day! The first passage day is always hard, since you haven't adjusted your sleep cycle to your watch schedule yet. We are making great progress but the tradewinds weather is not quite constant enough to let us relax. The wind keeps varying between ten and twenty knots, between east and southeast, and the sky one moment is brilliant clear and the next moment obscured by our own squally cloud. And while the reaching breeze means the sails help steady the boat, the long fetch tradewinds waves keep us rolling, and periodically drench us with a bucketful of water. We have been double reefed all day, as the lulls between the force five tradewinds have not been long enough to make it worth shaking out the reefs.

One squall, just after sunset, brought winds of thirty knots, so we had to roll up the jib for a bit. At the same moment, the main GPS lost most of its satellites, so our navigation instruments were telling us we were traveling 100 knots backwards. It took several reboots and reconfiguration to get our navigation back.

Even now, a soft moan of wind in the shrouds and an increase in the boat's angle of heel tells me another squall is upon us. I poke my head out to see that a dark cloud has obscured all but the brightest stars. But the brief wind gust passes, the windvane steering gets us back on course, and we reach onward across the seas.