04 May 2012
1445 (2pm)

Log book as written while crossing the Gulf Stream - catching up on postings

Enroute to West End from Key West. Beautiful day.seas a bit rough. Was supposed to lay down, but forecast vs reality is always different. Mostly 2-4 ft waves from the east southeast. Winds are blowing 18 kts but again right off the nose. Partly cloudy, very temperate-probably 82 right now. engine is doing fine. Have had the gen set on for about an hour total. Need to put voltmeter in for house battery. Got out on deck briefly to tighten the dinghy on the davits. Almost wore a hole in the fabric when we went out last time, and had to add an extra restraining strap to keep the dinghy from rocking.

The new Pioneer radio Renne bought is very nice. We are playing the MP3 through it and on random is playing great music.

Got off at 0700 this morning. Small fair well party there to see us off. Maury and Ginger, Lou, Two Daves, and John and Pam hailed us as we motored past their boat.

Breakfast was Grape Nuts and bananas, and lunch was a sandwich of Pimento Cheese Spread. Pear for dessert for Renne and I am having dark chocolate M&Ms

We are making decent time with 7.3kts, but the waves knock us back a bit in speed on a regular basis. At this point we are due into West End about 5pm Saturday.

1640
Abt 40 minutes from making our turn northeast toward West End. Very pleasant today. We are out in the ship channel now. I throttled back from 2450rpm back to 2250. Still doing 7.6 kts. We were in the middle of a pod of 40 -50 porpoises this morning abt 9 is morning. Pretty cool. So many breaking the surface at the same time you couldn't count them all.

All instruments okay.

1720
At 1645, Renne and I sat down and discussed setting the sails. Got our plan together with her at the helm and me outside. At 1700 I went out and raised the main with one reef. Renne was able to simultaneously winch down the reefing line. Voila' main sail up. I crawled out to remove the sail cover from the staysail. She opened the windscreen in the dodger and I was. Able to throw her the cover. I returned to the staysail and had to crawl back to the tack (front of the sail) to remove the halyard (line that hauls the sail up the mast) from its hook, and remove the sail ties to free the sail to raise it. Got it up, and in 7 minutes had the whole thing done. First time that fast!

At 1720 (520 pm), I opened a Bud Light and Renne went below to fix dinner. Much smoother now than before and sailing! Finally!

Several more updates coming.

JonNe'