Day 7: Slowwww, little wind, get organized and Halfway!

Our seventh day at sea was sunny and calm. We have had several hours of calm the past few days but always followed be good winds and hectic moments.  Each night we have had periods of a couple hours with low to no winds that shift each minute as the wind changes and above is, squalls that drop rain and change the wind quite drastically.  This causes a bit of a scramble to secure sails, pull in spinnakers, and watch the wind closely to get some forward motion to be able to steer. We have not used our engine for propulsion. Many the other boats have as they obviously decided to take penalty that accompanies using the engine for propulsion instead of sailing all or not at all.  I set out to sail to Hawaii and that’s what I am going to do, no engine propulsion. Today was especially low wind conditions, the lowest we have seen. We came to an essential stop. During this time we organized our rigging, cleaned some clothes and other items, organized personal items that were spread around during then hectic prior week of rough seas. We also celebrated out halfway point. 

The halfway point is an equidistant location between the start line in the San Francisco bay and the finish line near Kaneohe Bay.  We reached that point last night and celebrated it today with a gourmet meal complete with champagne that Larry brought from France a few months ago.  Larry and I dove into the ocean and swam for a while. It felt awesome!  I did a quick underwater inspection of Blue Moon and all looked well. We all showered, caught up on some sleep and prepared for the end of the race, which should be exciting.  

The fleet is converging on a common point from each boats different navigational view.  Blue Moon fell down on the leader board due to the low winds the past couple of days.  We are positioned nicely and ready to take a commanding position in the standings when the winds return which we expect to be tomorrow. We have come from dead last to leader of the pack twice already in this race and we expect to do it again.  The next several days should be exciting as the fleet converges after having been apart for several days and hundreds of miles to fight for the finish line honors. 

More to come!  But for now I need to get to sleep.  Its midnight and I have to be up for watch and helm at 03:00.
 
Fair Winds,
Russ