12°34.1S – 120°18.2W | Course 285° | Speed 6.6kn
The ocean is turning into liquid silk. With each hour, the wind fades a little more, and the waves stretch out like dark blue oil, smooth and endless. We are still making good miles in the right direction, though we now hum along under engine power.
Last night gave us one last taste of sailing — we caught some squalls with just enough wind to fly downwind. We set the forejib and the staysail wing on wing — one sail to port, the other to starboard, both billowing wide like open arms catching the breeze. It’s a classic downwind setup, beautifully symmetrical, and for a moment we sped up to 7.8 knots (with a little help of our engine..).
Jasmijn won today’s “picture of the day” with her perfect shot of that sail arrangement — wing on wing in all its glory. But by mid-afternoon, both sails hung limp, defeated by the calm.
With time on our hands, celestial navigation took center stage again. Sadly, the sun was less kind today — our position was somewhat… aspirational. We’ll try again tomorrow.
Our karma score might be slipping — not a single flying fish on deck in two days. We joked about it during watch, and not ten minutes later, a large flying fish slammed into the coffee pot with a metallic clang. We turned on the lights and flung it back overboard, alive and flapping.
The only fish that didn’t make it was the delicious Big Eye tuna Michael caught. He whipped up an incredible ceviche, Tonga-style — citrusy, ginger and coconut, fresh, and gone within minutes. A fleeting taste of the islands to come.
All is well on board,
Jet
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