Racing With Dummies! (Transpac Edition, Day 8)

by Mike

The wind curved some overnight and we started the day going more south than we wanted. We decided to jibe and turn right after it
got light.

It was fun letting Bob know it was light. After he'd been asleep about an hour I was able to gently say "HEY! GET UP!! IT'S TIME TO
TURN RIGHT!. What are you trying to do, sleep the day away!" It did give me deep and sincere pleasure.

So we jibed. After the sails were adjusted (took less than 30 minutes of adjusting this time) I was in the same situation as
yesterday. There was nothing much needing done on the boat. I browsed the movies and picked out "Hoosiers." This time I cooked
French toast, heavy on the cinnamon. Once again I ate way too much. It was nice.

After the movie I tore through a couple more Beethoven sonatas on the piano. Since I was wearing headphones, and no one else was
listening, I can use the term "tore." If someone had witnessed the performance I think the word "plod" might have been used.

Boat Tracking on the Minnow:
Every day we get an email from Transpac telling us the latitude and longitude of all the boats. A few days ago Bob wrote a nifty
program that takes the data from the email and puts all the boats on a map. That makes it very easy to see how far behind we are. It
's interesting that all the other boats are way north of us. Hum. Maybe the longer way is not the faster way.

Daily Cuisine:
Hot dogs for lunch. Hot dogs for supper, too. We are out of cake again.

Fishing report:
We finally got a bite today. But Bob lost the fish. He claims the line ran off the reel. I say he needs to learn to play the fish.
It's frustrating dealing with amateurs.

Arts and Entertainment:
Only 8 Beethoven sonatas left. My hands were tired by nightfall.

Hoosiers is a feel-good movie. I liked it pretty well, probably since I like sports.

In addition to "Hoosiers" this morning we both watched "The Island of Dr. Moreau" this evening. This was a pretty interesting story
about gene research on a secluded island. The most interesting thing is that it was written in the 1890s by H. G. Wells. That guy
was a forward thinker.

In a moment of curiosity, I counted the books on the Minnow. By my count we have 183 reading books and about 25 piano books. Maybe
we should slow down.

I finished John Jourdane's book and liked every story he wrote. The reporters account in chapter19 was too sensationalized for my
liking, but even it was interesting.

Next book … time for some heavy reading.