Marshalls to Alaska Day 15 - It's getting cold

Greetings,

Happy July 4th to our American friends!

We emerged from yesterday's fog into the sunshine today, but the sea and air temperatures are dropping quickly. Even Johnathan, who is the one of the most devoted barefoot advocates I know, showed up for the evening watch in wool socks and boots, although Max is persevering in bare feet and shorts.

I thought you might be curious about the routine we have developed after two weeks at sea. Max and I take the main watches in turns, with Victoria and Johnathan assisting in the mornings and evenings. I generally shake Max after my night watch around 3am and then wake to the sound of kids in the morning. If conditions warrant, Max will have left Victoria on watch and gotten some shut-eye in the saloon, otherwise, he will be very tired looking in the cockpit, and I will take over from him there. The kids and I then have the watch for the rest of the morning (which often means that I am doing chores below and Victoria is 'minding the shop' in the cockpit while working on one of her knitting projects upstairs) and I make sure that we have something ready for lunch around noon. Once Max has the watch after lunch, I will go off-watch until it is time to cook dinner, around 6pm. The highlight of the evening comes shortly after 7pm, when Max can download the new 'GRIBs' and Ocean Prediction Center weather charts (it was exciting to sail onto them a week or so ago) and we can get a sense of what the newest weather forecast looks like. Once dinner is cleared away Max will sleep, and I will take the watch again until about 3am. These days, with the late sunsets, the watch change has been creeping towards 9pm. It is nice that we are a family, because these timings can flex depending on conditions. I also like that we have all our meals together as it gives us time to reconnect after our separate watches. It has made a huge different to our capability that Victoria and Johnathan are able to handle so many of the boat and household chores. Even Benjamin is quite independent: no longer am I spending my time on cloth diapers and baby feedings.

Dolphins under our bow.

We have finally passed the half-way point in terms of miles to go, which of course we celebrated with milestone chips this afternoon. We have often seemed to be alone in the world since we left Majuro, but we are *really* pretty much 'in the middle of no where' now. The closest point of land is Midway Island, which is about 860 nm away, and is itself only a speck in the Pacific Ocean. Larger landmasses (Japan and Alaska) are both over 1,000 nm away. On the other hand, we are seeing more shipping traffic, so we are probably closer to people than we have been since we left two weeks ago!

We never feel alone, however, because we have a constant procession of sea birds fishing near the boat. Our companions have come in all shapes and sizes, from large birds (likely albatrosses) to very tiny black birds that make us wonder how they can possibly have the stamina to make it back to shore (probably 1,500-2,000 nm round trip). We have not been as successful as the birds at catching fish, but we finally caught something besides seaweed or fishing netting today when we pulled in a skipjack tuna.

Watching the dolphins from the foredeck (while clipped in)

Every now and again we have seen a few dolphins. Tonight we had dozens of them come to visit, dancing in our bow wave and under the boat. Numerous times, they came in groups of two or three from the left, surfaced near the boat, and then dove under the bow to show up on the right a second later. Sometimes dolphins seem very serious and don't stay very long, but these ones seemed quite playful, doing small jumps at the surface and staying beside us for 15-20 minutes. Benjamin was thrilled to be taken out onto the foredeck to watch them (tethered to the jack lines, of course).

Dolphins under our boat.  You can just barely see in the backgroun three dolphins that have just jumped and landed.

Dolphins under the boat.  The are grabs from a video so a bit blurry.

After a day of galloping along in steady winds and full sails, we are creeping along in variable winds and a counter current tonight. We expect to motor for a bit over the weekend before stronger winds fill in from the south to give us a push towards Dutch Harbor.

All is well on board.

Love to all,
Elizabeth
-----
At 2019-07-01 2:30 AM (utc) SV Fluenta's position was 38°55.94'N 171°59.80'E

----------
Sent via SailMail, http://www.sailmail.com