Well, Day 11 is coming to a close. The last 2 days have been very different. Day 10 dawned sunny, hot and calm. It felt very tropical. I spent the morning after my watch putting grommets in the mesh panels I made to attach to the bimini to provide shade. The wind picked up in the afternoon, and we flew the spinnaker. Got good speed and a comfortable ride. Late in the afternoon we were joined by a Boobie (with green feet not blue). He hung out on our lifelines until he decided to poop inboard instead of outboard - straight into the cockpit. At that point he received a blast from the hose and flew off - straight to the radar dome. Well boys being boys, out came the pellet gun, then the sling shot and finally a knot in the end of the spinnaker halyard. All that was achieved was peanuts on the deck and a hung up halyard. Boobie 1, Evergreen O. That night at dinner time we actually got 3 fish on our lines. All Bonito, all small. We did offer one to the stupid Boobie, but the fish was too big.
I had a moment and agreed to leaving the spinnaker up at least through my watch. Well, it seemed to be going okay, but the winds were building. After reading email from Brad (s/v Capaz Seattle Wa) who is helping us with weather routing. Dennis decided to bring down the spinnaker and reef the main. Thanks Brad and good call Dennis. Started raining on Vickies watch and Mark got us up for a possible squall at 0430ish. We pulled in the genoa, put out the staysail - winds picked up pretty good, but otherwise no problems, other than trying to sleep in a boat that is rocking and rolling.
This morning I spent my watch in the rain. Winds maxed out around 25 knots. Thankfully it was not cold, so I was wet but comfortable. Dennis turned the generator on around 0930, and thus began our day long project of trying to make the generator behave. My understanding of it is that the raw water cooling pump gets vapor locked/doesn't have a good antisyphon valve or something. So Dennis installed a secondary line that we could pump to draw in the water to prime the pump. Worked fine motoring, at anchor and even sailing 2 days ago. However today we discovered that it definitely does not like bouncy seas. After much angst and pumping and turning off and on of the generator, Dennis installed an electric pump to his secondary line and it worked quite well - when we were on a starboard tack. As soon as we changed to a port tack - it quit drawing water, which leads to the generator overheating. We did get some battery charging in, but think the generator won that skirmish. Keep in mind that we had lots of wind, off and on rain and big bouncy seas all day, so maybe it was really mother nature that won, cause we were pretty wiped out by the time we called it quits.
During dinner (no fish on the lines today - didn't put any out) a Boobie tried to land on our Mast head. Unfortunately the windvane up there is not meant to support Boobies. The Bird got his foot tangled in the fins of the vane and after much sqwuaking got loose, but bent up the vane pretty bad. Boobies 2, Evergreen 0.
It is bedtime now, we are mostly dried out, the stars are out, the radar is clear and we are hoping for an easier day tomorrow. I'll let you know.........
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