Racing With Dummies! (Transpac Edition)
Day 14
By Mike

At first light this morning we saw another sailboat! It crossed about 3.5 miles ahead of us from right to left. Sometime later today we would jibe and turn left. Until then we would, well there wasn�t much sailing to do. If we don�t mess up too badly, we should get there sometime tomorrow.

Mid-afternoon it was time to turn left. We began our jibing procedure by waiting for the rain shower to pass. The cool air felt nice. Then, step one, center the main. Step two � wait, one of the fishing reels started screaming. So Bob tightened the drag and we �dragged� the fish along with us. Take two, step two � wait, another fish on the other pole. Now we were dragging two fish along.

Again, step two, adjust and prepare a bunch of ropes. Step three, turn the boat. Step four, let a rope out and pull rope in. Step five, adjust all the ropes. Step five-alpha, reel in the fish.

After supper we did our first nighttime spinnaker jibe. It takes longer wearing inflatable harnesses and clipping in everywhere.

Sneak Preview of Tomorrow:
It got to be a habit.
At 2:30 in the morning we did another nighttime spinnaker jibe.
At 7:30 in the morning we did another nighttime spinnaker jibe.

Daily Cuisine:
Breakfast consisted of a variety of French toast. My practice so far shows that if you get enough sugar and cinnamon on the bread, it�s hard to ruin it.

Lunch was bologna and supper was fried fish and fried potatoes.

Fishing report:
Lots of bites and three fish landed (all dolphins).

Arts and Entertainment:
This evening we watched �Omega Man.� Since it�s so bad, we didn�t watch parts of it, but it played to the end.

I played a piano version of Tchaikovsky�s Symphony #6 �The Pathetique� and remembered how pretty it is. As a result, the symphonic version of it played on our stereo most of the afternoon.