What a day yesterday!!

Today is Friday the 8th of July. If you have been tracking us, you know we are headed more west now. Hopefully you had a chance to read Bob's explanation of why we headed so far south. Fingers crossed it will work!!

Yesterday was a big day for us! I saw an albatross on my morning watch. Cathy had whales almost right next to the boat (a little too close for comfort for sure - glad I was down below sleeping). We had the surfing cat kite up and the wind started to pick up. I saw up to 22 knots on my afternoon watch and had epic surfs including one that hit over 15 knots of boat speed. Cathy came up for her watch. A booby flew by and started circling our boat. Shoot - it's going to get on the mast and break our instruments! We try to chase it away, even use the air horn and it really doesn't care. Then..... we round up, tear the brand new kite on the spinnaker net and then things get very busy. We, of course, forget about the booby. We get things under control and go into our night watches. When I come up at 11pm or so, Cathy tells me she has a funny thing to tell me when I get on deck. I get up on deck.... The booby is sitting on the fairleads for the spinnaker haylards on the mast. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, the haylards (lines) that hold the spinnakers up come out of the mast at the top and down about two feet and then go through loops before they go to the spinnaker. The bird was sitting on those loops, asleep as we bounce around in a bit of wind. I can't believe it's sleeping! We had a stowaway!

As soon as the sun is up the next morning, it takes off. We think it traveled with us for about 75 miles. Nothing broken on the mast. :)

Time to eat.

- Lori

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