Well it's Sunday and we are jogging right along headed south southwest at about 850 miles west of Mag Bay on the Baja Coast, for those of you with a map of the Mexican Peninsula. The race started with a "Rock Star" start. We nailed the start and led the fleet across the channel to Catalina with all the Paparazzi on the water and the (3) three Helicopters in the air taking pictures and filming us from all angles. We have been diving as far south as the weather routing suggests, although we are now keeping an eye out for the Galapagos Islands (ha ha ha).We have been settling in to our routines so far and doing well on the course. I know it looks like we are letting everybody get by when you look at the tracking map, but we have a plan. The weather maps are showing the winds to be way south and the northern side of the course is real light, so here we are going fast and far hoping that it will pay off and make us first to the Island.
Sleep is the thing the most in short supply here, we have plenty of freeze dried food (astronaut food), fresh fruits and vegetables, cereals and snacks, but sleep is the thing we all need more of. A typical day goes something like this.. there are four guys on watch all the time and every hour one of them goes off watch and one comes on. A typical watch consists of Trimming the sails for a half an hour or so then a half an hour on the grinder, then driving for a half an hour or so and we rotate the next four hours this way. when you go off watch you have four hours to eat, sleep and do what ever hygiene rituals you do. This all sounds fine until you factor in the ever present Gybe or sail change, which requires all hands on deck as we all have our own part in the maneuvers. These can be as fast as 15 minutes for a Gybe or as long as a half an hour for the sail change which includes repacking the spinnaker so it is ready for the next time you need to change back to that one. O.K. so imagine trying to sleep in a bed that is leaning to one side and keeps trying to throw you out.....now some one comes in and call out "ALL HANDS ON DECK FOR A SAIL CHANGE". Your sleeping in most of your clothes but still have to get on a coat and life jacket with harness and run out on to a wet leaning, pitching deck in the dark to wrestle up 3600 square feet of sail and then take down the one that is already there, IN THE DARK. When that is all done and the watch that was already on settles back into their routine you get to take that sail down below into the boat with the other four guys who are also trying to get their four hours and repack it into it's launch bag properly. O.K. now that your all done with that you can get back to whatever is left of your four hours to sleep so that you can be on deck at the correct time to relieve your counterpart and then he can try to get as much sleep as possible with his four hours. 11 DAYS 24 HOURS A DAY.
And that's all I have to say about that right now, I think I have used up as much of my four hours as I can spare for now. Stay tuned more to come.
John and Team cipango
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