currently at:2606.4N 7914.8W (about 46 miles east of Fort Lauderdale) current date:12 May 2005

Coffee surely is a miracle drug. Why else would I be feeling perky on a sum total of three hours sleep in the last twenty-four? I always find it hard to sleep on the first night of a passage, although I dutifully lie in bed while off watch, listening to the rigging creak and slap; this morning I watched the sun rise, adjusted the sails and helped Britt (groggy just out of bed - he'd finally managed his few hours of sleep) and put out the whisker pole to keep the jib from flopping on our downwind course, then rolled into bed at 7 am for three hours of intermittent weird dreams. Then it was my turn to be groggy as we took down the pole. But then I made coffee, and cut myself a slice of the breakfast bread I baked for the passage, and I'm ready for the day.

Not that much happens, on a passage. We read. We listen to the radio for news and weather information, and listen to music on our mp3 and CD players. We fish - yesterday while we sailed along the east coast of Andros we caught a nice-sized mahi-mahi to add to what's left of the yellow jack, so now it's all catch and release. At night we watch the stars in the sky, and the glowing flecks of bioluminescence in the water, and the moving blips on our radar screen. Every so often we pull on a line or loosen one, trying to get just a little more out of our sails. And that's about it. Pretty boring!

Right now we are sailing northwest in a 10-knot easterly breeze, keeping an eye on the sea-temperature thermometer and the two speeds we measure - the speed over ground (SOG) from the GPS, and the speed over water (SOW) from our paddlewheel impeller - looking for the Gulf Stream, our fast ride to Savannah. It's out here somewhere.

148 miles down; 400 miles to go...