Racing With Dummies! (Transpac Edition, Day 3)

By Mike

Today started with our spinnaker up and looking good. Same as it was the night before, actually. I think we averaged about 11 knots.
We had some fresh wind overnight (fresher, in fact, than our spinnaker should fly in, we were to find out).

We could see several other boats this morning. During the Transpac position reporting I started putting each boats position on our
chart plotter. It was encouraging, and kind of fun, to see us in the general vicinity of several other boats. Remember, we spotted
them 10 minutes at the start!

The Spinnaker Chronicles:
Around noon we were discussing which way to go. We pretty much agreed on the best direction so we hoping one of us would change our
mind to avoid such an embarrassing situation. About that time, in moderate wind (honestly), our spinnaker quit on the job, (probably
the wind getting fresh with it during the night). The biggest part of it ended up dragging behind the boat. Those things sure are
heavy when they are wet.

That made our direction deciding a lot simpler. We went directly downwind for awhile with our main on one side and our jib on the
other. The sailing term for that is "monkey-winged" or something like that. It was a good direction, but kind of slow.

After an hour or so we got tired of going slow and opted to put up another spinnaker. It didn't work very well. It got wrapped
around the guy wires so we took it down and went back to "monkey-winged." (Be aware that a spinnaker episode like this can take a
couple of hours what with all the glove finding, snack eating, rope tying, autopilot remote finding, rope untying, drink getting,
trial and error spinnaker setting, spinnaker recovery, and "monkey-wing-resetting" going on.)

Personally, I was getting a little bit fatigued.

Then a couple of hours after that we again got tired of going slow and again put up a spinnaker and went faster. This time we went a
little sideways to the wind and it puffed out agreeably. The problem then? We were going pretty much straight south.

Before long it was dark. Since the sails were stable, we left them alone for the night and continued southward. They predicted
better wind down south anyway. That's how we rationalized it at least. We'll see.

Daily Cuisine:
Nothing special today. More fried eggs, but with bacon this time. I built a very tall, special bologna sandwich, in the style of
Dagwood. It was delicious. After dark, when we were done messing with the ropes and sails, Bob and I enjoyed a gourmet frozen pizza.
It was also delicious.

The plate of 24 deviled eggs that Bob got is dwindling.

Fishing report:
They weren't biting for the third day in a row! We did catch a piece of nylon rope tangled with moss and seaweed. I forgot and left
the line reeled in or we would have caught a spinnaker around noon.

Arts and Entertainment:
Today's movies were Cat Ballou and Tomb Raider I.

I did the crossword puzzle from few days old USA Today. Who ever heard of a lasso being called a riata? That sure messed up five up
and down words before I got it corrected.