Pacific Odyssey - Leg 2

Today was a great sailing day. We have been making between 6.5 and 9 knots for the past 24 hours, just flying. The waves are somewhat more regular, but the sea is still choppy, with waves coming over the rails, more in the bow than in the stern. We are still close reached, with the wind on the port bow, which is nice for us starboard side sleepers. At 0400 hrs the mainsail was lowered and the trysail set.  About 12 trainees were called out of their bunks to help with
the sail handling. This morning Jose attached a lizard (type of
fairlead on a lanyard) to the main topping lift at the after end of the main boom to stop the block from colliding into the boom. The trysail came down and the main with a single reef was raised. The jib also went up and our speed increased. The jib went up and down several times throughout the day as the wind would increase. Carolyn went out in the whiskers (net under the bowsprit, at the forward end of the ship) in her harness to help bring down the jib and lash it down. The motion was big and the sea was spraying her as she worked; she loved it and volunteered again later in the day, in the dark
under a very bright moon. She was quite ecstatic after the experience. Tavish was doing a lashing for Jordan on the bowsprit,
standing in the whiskers, again in a harness, when a very large wave came and flipped him to the outside of the whiskers, engulfing him, covering everything but his hair. He hopped onto the deck pretty quick. Arwen, Jacob and Noah made double chocolate chip mint cookies for everyone, with special cookies for Claire to enjoy too. Skipper took some time before supper to lay out a general time plan for the rest of the trip. He had a wipe board showing the Marquesas, the Tuamotus and Tahiti and explained our route and amount of
time for each passage. From this we were able to figure out how much time remained to visit the islands and some of the choices we need to
make. He went over ship routine in port and changes in shipboard life when our passages are shorter and we are moving from island to island. Following this, there was a general buzz of excitement as we
realized life is about to change. We have become so accustomed to our
small community at sea, we tend to forget there is something to experience beyond this. We are looking forward to land, to a change, somewhat anxious perhaps as to what awaits us. Also though, there is a sadness that this part of the leg is over, that our time at sea as the close group we have become, is going to change. I know what follows will also be good, it will be different though. There is something special about the longer passages at sea; they are possibly more difficult but that difficulty often produces a change in our attitudes for the good. We are hoping to see land late tomorrow as the Marquesas are very mountainous. Until tomorrow, good night, Bonice