Life on a boat that's navigating through 8-foot tall, confused seas can be quite interesting. We've been rocking and rolling and corkscrewing for more than 24 hours now, and while it does get tiresome to have to plan each step and handhold, you do adapt. You get used to maneuvering through the cabin from handhold to handhold, as if you were on monkey bars; picking things up off the floor that you thought had been secured; hearing new groans or squeaks and mentally assessing whether they are worrisome or just bothersome (and how to deal with them in either case); and rolling with the boat. SCOOTS actually provides quite a comfortable ride, compared to other boats (the nautical term is seakindly), but even she can't completely smooth out these unruly, confused seas. I'll say again that I'm really glad that neither Eric nor I are particularly prone to seasickness.

Even making a cup of coffee becomes a gymnastic, athletic and mental exercise: you can't put anything down on a counter because it will roll off or slide off or spill; you need to constantly keep yourself braced or (better) hold on with one hand; you have to be careful when you pour the hot water, as gravity may not be pulling where you think it should be and the water may not go straight down. It requires a lot of planning to pull it off. And all this BEFORE having coffee.

At the moment, at about 6 am, we're cruising along at about 6 knots, in about 20 knots of wind, in 8-ft confused seas that are slapping SCOOTS' sides, rolling her from side to side, or making her do a corkscrew dance, over and over in random succession. This won't last forever; eventually we'll sail into smoother conditions and life will get easier again. The stars are shining brightly overhead, and the bioluminescence is shining alongside SCOOTS. The sun will be coming up in a little while; sunshine makes everything better.

We had our first enroute repair on Wednesday: our Code 0 sail developed a couple of rips that needed fixing right away. Fortunately, when we discovered the rips the seas were only slightly bewildered, rather than completely befuddled as they are now, and were only maybe 5 feet tall. We were able to pull the sail down and apply sail tape while balancing on the rolling deck. Unfortunately, the sail tape didn't stick well, so we had to take the sail down the rest of the way, and feed the affected portion down through the main hatch where Eric had set up the sewing machine on the cabin table. He was able to stitch over the patches, making them more secure. Then we put the sail back on the furler. Good to go. Or to continue to go, as is actually the case.

We saw a few masked boobies and red-footed boobies today, and lots of flying fish. You could probably walk across the ocean on the backs of all the flying fish. No tuna today.

We traveled 142 miles (in those rolling seas) since yesterday.

The Deck Check was: 2 flying fish, one of which was still alive and wiggling. Both are back in the water.