Month: March 2019

March 20, 2019 When we had 100 miles to go, John asked for our predictions on when we would sight land. Joe said that at 0 miles, he was 100% sure we would see it. John was closest with his guess of 40 miles. At 42 to go, he saw land clearly on the horizon. […]

March 20, 2019 What a day! Highs and lows, ups and downs, births and deaths. Ok – the births didn’t actually happen today but it makes for a more dramatic opening. Let’s start with births. A couple of days ago, in what I’m guessing might be a first for a Pacific crossing, we hatched twin […]

March 18, 2019 Another beautiful day on the Pacific. Still sailing with the spinnaker up so the luck of the Irish (or maybe Scottish?) is holding. We made a strategic choice to try to hold to the rhumb line rather than going north to get a better wind angle as other boats have done. If […]

March 17, 2019 Charm is sailing like her name at the moment. If St. Patrick’s Day has brought us the luck of the Irish, that will continue all night. We had more fun putting the spinnaker up and down today. The sock (thing that makes the sail easier to deploy) wasn’t working and Joe wanted […]

March 16, 2019 I felt like I was witnessing the answer to a riddle – there’s a dead body at the bottom of the stairs. All the doors and windows are closed. What happened? There would need to be a bit more information to make it a good riddle but you get the idea. The […]

March 15, 2019 Race fans – watch us closely. Tomorrow, if all goes as planned, we will fly the rainbow spinnaker again. The crew and skipper have been resting up but the comfort phase has ended and we are ready to take on Nica (leader boat) again.  Unfortunately, she broke her boom vang a day […]

March 14, 2019 We have stars again! The moon is interfering with visibility somewhat but not nearly as much as the clouds were. We had great sailing weather today and it continues tonight. We’ve got 15-20 knots fairly consistently out of tune SE and are able to hold the rhumb line with the wind at […]

March 13, 2019 So the squall wasn’t a squall – it was a weather system of some sort that brought over 12 hours of rain. After I went to bed, it continued raining on everyone. At least it was fair – all watches got equally wet. The excitement today, apart from the end of the […]

March 12, 2019 The banana bread is gone. The bread, the moment, all of it. The adventure is back in the form of a squall that won’t leave. The day was great. The waves finally calmed enough that we could go on the foredeck and do our PE activities. Cobin and I resumed our boat […]

March 11, 2019 Another night, another blog entry! Tonight was poetry night on Charm and I was inspired by one of my favorite poets, Billy Collins, to think about the juxtaposition of me, the writer, and you, my Reader. We are probably both fixated on bright little screens at the moment. For your sake, I […]