DAY 15: Wed, May 21 Seas: 4-6ft, very rolly, lost our favorable current Wind: NE/E/SE, 9-15 knots Sails: Main only while motoring/jib sail by night Power: Generator-0 hrs, engine 1201-1184=17 hrs Water: Made 70 gallons Miles traveled at 8am: 1201-1082=119mi Meal: Pigs in a blanket (hot dogs wrapped in biscuit dough), corn, chips and guacamole dip, chocolate chip cookies Mood of captain and crew: Quezy. The days of calm seas took away our sea legs and left us unarmed for this rough day at sea. Casey iron-stomach finished book: "Golden and Gray" School: Casey completed, Tara did several hours of history only. Other: Took showers today! Small squalls hit us throughout the day, bringing rain three times. Tried to fly our gennaker at dusk, but it has been difficult to fly and douse ever since it took the plunge into the ocean many days ago. It wouldn't let all the sail out of the shoot, so I insisted that we lower the gennaker, bring it into the cockpit and cabin where we had light, untwist the sail inside the top of the sock, and then restuff the sail into the sock. Sean was not at all happy about it. He was too tired to rerig the sail that night, so we creeped along using the jib. I awoke from my morning sleep cycle to the beautiful sight of the gennaker flying and Adventure blazing through the water. On my way to the head, I saw Casey laying on a bed with the fan blowing on her face. I said, "good morning!" and touched her leg. It was damp. "Why is your leg wet?" I asked. That's when I noticed the small drops of sweat also on her face. With an exhausted look, she said, "I just helped dad put up the gennaker." I knew how she felt. Sean always hold some slack line or looks at an unnecessary instrument reading while I do the muscle work too. Movie: Eureka

DAY 16: Thurs, May 22 Seas: 2-4ft, light roll Wind: SE, 5-10 knots Sails: Poled-out gennaker Power: Generator-4 hrs, engine 1201-1201=0 hrs Water: None made Miles traveled at 8am: 1082-967=115mi Meal: Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and green beans Mood of captain and crew: Good. School: Completed Other: Tara made us a wonderful "Thanksgiving Day Feast" for dinner. It's great to have spare time for cooking. The girls are honeing their culinary skills and the yummy food is helping to break up the monotony of our many days at sea. Sean participates in a net on the SSB radio in the evenings with several other Marquesas-bound boats and they always get around to discussing what each boat is having for dinner. One guy told us the other day that he didn't know what he was having for dinner because he hadn't caught it yet! A good meal really is an important thing when you're this far from anywhere.

During my 6am watch this morning, I was excited to notice our waypoint on our radar, which only has room for 3 whole digits, read 995.6 miles. Yes, that right folks, it finally started counting down from 999.9 (which it's been set on for the past 1,500 miles or so). It's not much, but out here, you take anything you can get! We're 2/3 of the way to the Marquesas.

A delicate subject: Every day on this leg of our trip, Tara's been telling me I have B.O. (body odor). It's been driving me crazy. I bathe regularly and wear deodorant. I smell my underarm, and it smells o.k. to me. But she keeps complaining. So for the past two days I didn't wear deodorant and she stopped complaining. I mentioned it today and, after sniffing me, she said I smelled o.k. I returned to her for another sniff test after putting on deodorant (the same brand I've worn all my life, and one she's never complained about). She cringed and said I had B.O. I explained to her that she'd been smelling my deodorant, not B.O. There is a big difference. I guess I'll have to put off my bathing for a few more days so she can experience the REAL smell of B.O. Mothers must do what is necessary to prepare their children for real life. How embarrassed Tara would be around her peers if, in the gym at school, she didn't know the true smell of B.O. One of the joys of cruising is not just the quantity, but the quality of time one gets to spend with her children. Movie: MacGyver

DAY 17: Fri, May 23 Seas: 2-4ft, light roll Wind: SE, 2-9 knots Sails: Poled-out gennaker Power: Generator-5 hrs, engine 1201-1201=0 hrs Water: None made Miles traveled at 8am: 967-852=115mi Meal: Leftover Turkey and stuffing Mood of captain and crew: Good. Casey completed her book, Thief Lord, today. Tara spends a lot of her free time writing on her new Mac computer, reading, and water painting. School: Half-day of school: math and history only Other: We saw another blip on our radar today, a sailboat about 8 miles off our port side. Sean hailed them and found it is Quetzal Kuala, another boat traveling to the Marquesas. They left Galapagos two days before we did and we were just then overtaking them. Sean was delighted to pass another boat, even though we were only going about 4 knots. I woke up this morning to the sound of the gennaker clew banging against our bow stanchion poles. Sean had just gone to bed, so wasn't willing to do anything about it at the time. I went up on deck to inspect the problem to make sure it wouldn't cause more damage while he slept. The plastic sleeve that fits over our jib furling broke in half, so the clew connector was sliding down the furling. I moved the webbing up the furler and hope it will stay for the duration of Sean's nap. Since the clew is connected to the furling in another place too, there is no danger of the gennaker coming loose. Movie: The Grapes of Wrath

DAY 18: Sat, May 24 Seas: 2 ft, Flat Wind: E, 0-6 knots Sails: Full main and jib while motoring, poled-out gennaker Power: Generator-0 hrs, engine 1201-1221 hrs Water: Made 40 gallons Miles traveled at 8am: 852-738=114 mi Meal: An ala cart night-Mac and cheese (Casey and Tara), feta/pasta salad (Kathy), leftover creole shrimp and rice that Tara made for lunch (Sean) Mood of captain and crew: Good School: Completed Other: Before the wind died completely, it started clocking around, so Sean started messing with the gennaker to keep it full. He pulled the whisker pole too close to the bow and turned down wind. This made the gennaker flap along the bow, and it caught on our green and red running light. We heard a startling tearing noise and then Sean saying, "Oh! We just tore our sail." Please note the use of the word "We". Sean uses this word when he should mean "I". He also uses "I" when he should use "We"; as in "I put up the gennaker" when it was actually "We" who did it. The 8-foot long tear was at the foot, just beyond the heavily-reenforced tack (where it connects to the fore-stay). Luckily, this is not a major stress point, so we decided to use sail tape to mend the sail material and ripped foot and then sew along the foot for added reenforcement. Because the tear was where many of the sail's panels joined together at the tack, we had to tape multiple layers of sail-starting with the inside layers and working our way out. The sewing machine I had bought from another cruiser for $50 while at the Berkeley Marina, came in handy as I sewed the foot of the sail back into place. A major regret is that I don't have any thin UV-protected sail thread to use with my sewing machine (all my sail thread is coated with a waxy layer and is too thick for my machine). I had to use regular thread. Since our gennaker is our only light-wind sail that we have with us, we're hoping the sail tape will hold up. With no wind, we motored through the day and into the night. At 6:30 am, we got a puff of light wind (3-6 knots), so we turned off the engine and flew the gennaker. So far, it's working like a charm. Before the sail-tear incident, our "tacker" broke. It's a hard plastic device that slides over the furled headsail to hold the gennaker tack in place. So, while my sewing machine was out, I made a replacement tacker out of naugahyde. When the sail caught on the running light, it tore the green and red-colored cover off. We'll add this to our list of stuff to order from the U.S. and have my mom and sister bring when they visit us in Tahiti in early July. Movie: Nemo

DAY 19: Sun, May 25 Seas: 2-4 ft, light roll Wind: SE, 6-15 knots Sails: Poled-out gennaker Power: Generator-0 hrs, engine 1221-1221=0 hrs Water: None made Miles traveled at 8am: 738-602=136 mi Meal: Curried fish, veggies, saffron rice, and a yummy strawberry cheese cake that Casey made Mood of captain and crew: Edgie-we've been getting along well throughout the over-seas journey.until today. The girls started bickering with each other and I was irritated with Sean. Sean didn't fight back. I think he's depressed because, for the past three days, he's laid around all day and complains about being tired, but he can't sleep. The only time he acts lively is when he's the net controller for the daily Marquesas-bound check in (which he complains about, but clearly enjoys). He denies being depressed and says it's just me PMS-ing. School: Completed Other: The gennaker patches are holding together well. We had a pleasant sail in 8 knots of wind throughout the day and tested the patch job when the wind picked up and held at 12-14 knots for the night. I wanted to reconfigure our sails for the heavier wind, but Sean was tired (.depressed?) and assured me we could douse the gennaker and put up the other sails if the wind topped 15 knots. We're not sure if the wind topped 15 because the timer battery died and Sean slept (due to the depression?) through his and my watch times. Good thing we're out in the middle of nowhere and there's not much to run into!

The girls sat up deck with Sean during the start of his watch to star-gaze. At night, it's pitch dark until the moon comes out around 1pm, so the stars are brilliant. The star-gazing ended abruptly when the conversation turned to the Flying Dutchman and the girls got scared. Movie: Treasure of the Sierra Madre

DAY 20: Mon, May 26 Seas: 7-9 ft, large, rolly seas Wind: SE, 11-22 knots Sails: Poled-out gennaker by day, poled-out jib/reefed main by night Power: Generator-3 hrs, engine 1221-1221=0 Water: None made Miles traveled at 8am: 602-441=161 mi Meal: Hamburger pizza, left over curry fish Mood of captain and crew: Tired and quezy School: Completed Other: The wind picked up today and buoyweather.com says it will be to 20 knots for at least the next 3 days. The good news is that we're moving fast (about 7 knots), the bad news is that we're all really uncomfortable. I spent a lot of time in the galley, making pizza dough, sauce, and toppings for lunch. When the time came to cook it in the oven, I discovered that the oven wouldn't stay lit. The pilot light stayed on, but the broiler flame wouldn't. I'll tinker with it today to see if I can fix it. I suspect the thermocouple because the broiler will light only if I heat it with my lighter and it goes out when I remove the lighter flame. I'm going to see if I can bend the thermocouple closer to the pilot light.So, I cooked the pizza on the stove top in my two largest frying pans, which took a lot of time (I'd made a double dough recipe so we could have leftovers, which ended up being 6 pans-worth of dough). I was hoping the extra pizzas would give me a break from cooking the next day, but the crew consumed pizza after pizza until we had just one small ground beef pizza (which Casey at for dinner that night) and one plain cooked pizza dough left over. All the while, I was getting tossed back and forth as each wave hit Adventure on her side. As I pressed the pizza dough into the shape of the pan, my body would slam against the galley counter and then to the back of the settee. This morning, I feel like I was hit by a truck. I'm going to use my pressure cooker today to make dinner so I can avoid long periods of time standing in the galley. With the rough seas, it's best to be laying down as much as possible or sitting in a comfortable seat that has a good foot brace. Hopefully only four more days of this! Movie: Sean and Casey watched a Star Trek episode while Tara and I laid in bed and talked

DAY 21: Tue, May 27 Seas: 9-11 ft, large, rolly seas Wind: SE, 12-25 knots Sails: Poled-out reefed jib and reefed main/reefed main by night Power: Generator- hrs, engine-1221-1224=3 hrs Water: None made Miles traveled at 8am: 441-291=150 mi Meal: Teriyaki pork, rice, veggies Mood of captain and crew: Tired, restless, scared School: None Other: Big wind, big waves, yucky day, worse nights. Several squalls hit us during the night and each brought 25 knots of wind with it. During Sean's morning watch, the wind shifted from SE to E and I awoke the sound of our main jibing. Although it's too rough to go up on the top deck to check, it appears no damage was done to our rigging or sails during this accidental jibe (we didn't have the main out very far). As everything loose in the cabins below was flung about, I ran to the cockpit, grabbed the wheel from Sean, and put us back on a good course while Sean tended the sails. My legs were shaking from the rain and the stress of the incident.

Side note: I love our autopilot. Using hydrolics, it is very substantial and works like a charm in even the worst weather. Unfortunately, it is an energy hog. I'd like to add a windvane to our boat for use on long trips like this, where power is at a premium. Also, I thank God daily for our autopilot because I can't imagine how difficult it would be to hand-steer for hours, let alone, days, weeks, or months at a time. I have nightmares about what would happen if our autopilot broke. So, if we had a windvane, we'd have a backup in case anything happened to our current autopilot. Movie: Startrek Next Generation and Magnum P.I