This is our 4th day at sea since leaving Galapagos. Things are going well. The first day or so we didn't have much wind and were only making 5-7kts WSW, but as we have worked our way further south the wind has picked up to 12-25kts and we are making a steady 7- 10kts CMG.

The 2nd day out we got a litttle ahead of ourselves and setup our wing-on-wing sail configuration. This is where we take all the other sails down and deploy poles on both sides, with our genoa on port and the ballooner on starboard. This creates a giant wall of sail. The trouble was that the wind shifted so it was more on our quarter rather than our stern, which made for a rolly and noisy ride as the sails kept filling and emptying themselves. Also the 8-10kts of wind wasn't really enough. It was a 3 hour job getting those sails put up as the poles are quite a contraption to set up, each with 5 lines to hold them in place. There was also a problem with the hook the ballooner uses to fix itself at the top of the furler; our previous hook had broken and we had not realized the tip had been left in the mechanism. After several failed attempts to click the hook in place, we realized there was something wrong and we had to lower and stow the ballooner and then lower the genoa so we could examine the mechanism and ultimately remove the tip of the old hook.

We left the wing-on-wing configuration for the day, somewhat dissatisfied with the results we were getting. Eventually, we took it down, turned somewhat further south and set-up a 4 sail configuration: genoa, main, mizzen, and mizzen staysail. With that we were able to get an extra couple of kts. The next evening, Dana woke Mark because the wind had picked up beyond the 15kts max the mizzen staysail can handle, so we took it down.

Dana has been focusing on trying get into passage making sleeping patterns, avoiding sea sickness, laundry, and some cooking. We had an unfortunate incident yesterday where the hamburger we had defrosted was bad and had to be thrown out, resulting in vegetarian chili for dinner.

Mark has been puttering around on the boat, trying to fix several things each day. He found the mizzen staysail rigging wasn't set up quite right, causing one of the lines to rub into the hull. We found there was another shackle that was supposed to be used to avoid this. He replaced the seals on the supply pump for the forward head; applied anti-corrosion agent to all of the tools that were beginning to rust; and figured out why the SSB/Pactor modem was not working. We also setup our satellite phone and tested it out by calling Dana's mom for a couple of minutes.

We've been trying to check in with an SSB "net" every night and morning. This is a defined frequency and time, where everyone crossing the Pacific in our area can call in to register their coordinates and other conditions, the idea being to add another layer of safety as well as to hear about the experiences for other people's crossings. In this we have been frustrated that for some reason we cannot hear the other participants in the net. The people are there but we cannot get a strong enough signal to hear exactly what they are saying nor to participate ourselves.

Overall, we are very happy with the progress we have made and are generally getting a smooth ride. Most of the bumpiness we have now is due to the speed we are going out increasing the force of the movement. If we can keep up this rate, we should have a short crossing, perhaps even less than the 20-day minimum we had planned for... 16 days is not out of the question.