Day 6B – Getting closer

We’ve used all 20 of the Trader Joe’s Almond Milks that I purchased in Annapolis, eaten all of Justin’s brownies, finally finished off the basil cheese, and we opened all of our care package goodies – so it must be time to be “there”.  As if on cue, just like the day prior to arriving in Horta, the winds have now dwindled to under 10 knots.  Although the seas are now quite comfortable, we’ve turned on the engine a bit early for charging our batteries, a bit eager to be able to make landfall tomorrow morning  There’s a good chance we’ll have a bit more wind in an hour and will turn off ‘ol stinky.  We just had a nice lunch of red beans and rice (stashed in our cabinet by my mom), with some grilled onions and Portuguese sausage that we bought on impulse in Horta – we don’t eat tons of meat, but sausages are definitely a weakness.

We enjoyed showers today – this pretty much entails sitting on the toilet seat cover using the handheld nozzle to wet you down while you struggle to stay seated on a now wet toilet seat cover.  Add a bit of soap, and you get a better workout while the boat lurches forward and to leeward, after a sudden rocking to windward.  If you are lucky, you remembered to stash the toilet paper in the cabinet before you turned on the water to soak everything.  If not, you get to spend some time naked trying to clean the floor of the head of bits of soggy toilet paper.  When you’re happily clean, you then get to open the door to the head and try to find your way to where the towels are flying around, hanging off a hook…I always feel like I’m practicing  an Irish dance because in bare feet and a lurching boat, it’s reminiscent of the stomps of Riverdance.  There are no high kicks unless I get unlucky and step hard onto a sloped part of the floor that suddenly slips out from under me.  Shower feat accomplished, there’s nothing nicer than sitting in the cockpit to finish drying off and enjoying the sensation of clean.

There were no other sleepwalking episodes last night, but in my defense – sounds you hear in the boat versus outside in the cockpit are very different.  The banging of halyards, of a winch handle dropping, of the groans of the boat – these all take getting used to, but there are still odd sounds that surprise you, like a wave crashing just right that makes it sound like armageddon has arrived outside.  I typically sleep pretty lightly so am more prone to springing up to check out the sounds, since we’ve had more than one occasion where we needed both of us on deck immediately.  Justin, on the other hand, sleeps quite soundly until I shake him awake.  I should feel flattered that he is confident in my abilities to deal with armageddon on my own :).

We’re closing in on 100 miles to go.  This evening, we should start seeing lights on land at 50 miles out, more or less, depending on visibility.

Current position – 41 10.51n 11 17.58w
Distance to go – 118 nm
24 hour run – 171 nm

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