Hello again - overall a pleasant day from the wind and wave standpoint - or really, from pretty much any standpoint. We made good progress close reaching as the waves diminished. When we listened to Herb yesterday evening, he pointed out that the storm ahead of us is still parked there and kicking up 30k winds with seas up to 18'. We can see the storm on all of our weather charts - we get weather faxes over the radio several times a day. He suggested that we could avoid unpleasant weather if we drop down to the 33rd latitude and we decided to do just that. I've never been afraid to be wimpy! Unfortunately, we were up to latitude 35 and the Azores are at 39N, so going to 33N is a bit of a detour and adds distance to our sail. But, we're going south at a gradual angle and we can revisit the decision after seeing the weather charts today and hearing Herb's latest counsel. Should the storm diminish more rapidly, we won't have to go so far south. All the charts show it running out of energy and dying - the question is, how soon.
We've been running the genset a lot to create enough electricity to run our autopilot and freezer. We expected a fair amount of this, but it was getting excessive. So I read the manual for the voltage regulator - a user-unfriendly document to be sure. After 5-10 times through the relevant sections, I took a shot at custom programming the charging curves. Voila, lusty charging and much less of it! Every boat needs a gearhead!
You notice that I am doing all the typing. Thanks Miss Jones in 9th grade typing class - at least one of us can type. The others send best wishes and will email you when they get internet. We have all been doing little projects during the day. Andi is organizing and sorting things in drawers. Merritt tightened the screws on the cockpit lockers. Then, we have to keep up with our reading. At sea, I tend towards pulp fiction, Tom Clancy at the moment. I have no pride. Well, next book will have more meat to it, I promise.
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