After 20 hours of great sailing, the wind started to die again. We decided to just motor all last night with only our main up. Now we have only about four knots of wind but it is starting to turn to the west as expected. In a few hours we should be flying along in 15-20 knots of wind. We purposely sailed and motored more to the west than our direct course would dictate. This puts us in a better position to take advantage of the coming west south-west winds to sail right where we need to go. We are also taking advantage of the very calm conditions this morning to transfer some of the fuel from our cans to the tank. We carry 57 gallons of diesel fuel in our fuel tank and another 20 gallons on deck in 5 gallon cans lashed to our rail. It wouldn't be fun to transfer these cans in rough conditions so we're doing it now.

I have written about all the wonderful things we are experiencing but it�'s not a stress free trip. Between the sea sickness early in the trip and the lack of sleep from getting used to the three hours on and three hours off schedule, tempers have flared a number of times. Yesterday when we were putting up our whisker pole was definitely one of those times. The whisker pole is a great piece of equipment. It projects out from the mast and holds the jib out so it stays full of wind. It's used when we are sailing downwind (with the wind right behind us). The main is on one side and the jib on the other. This is called "wing and wing". The whisker pole is complicated to rig. It seems like we always get something wrong. It's usually a line in the wrong place or something stuck. This would be stressful at anchor but add the fact that the boat is rolling from side to side and it really gets scary. Every step is agonizingly slow. It's like working underwater. Yesterday it wasn't going well and I got very angry at the whisker pole and Donna. I felt very bad about yelling and apologized profusely. I am trying very hard to make this offshore trip work for us. There are some improvements we can do to the boat to make it easier to get around when the boat is moving, we can get better at some of the tasks (like putting up that damn whisker pole), but in the end we just need to get used to the motion and discomfort and see the offshore trips as an interesting experience that gets us to amazing places. It's not easy but I think it will work out.

Anyway, it's another beautiful day at sea. We must be getting closer to land. We saw two big ships last night and this morning. We hadn't seen anything at all for the last five days.

We are now 360 miles southwest of Bermuda and about 590 miles from the Chesapeake Bay.