We have been sailing the past 2 days, working our way back down to San Juan del Sur...we are almost there now. Today we had 2 reefs in the whole day, frequent sustained gusts of 35 knots, we kept getting blown away from the coast into the rougher water, so we had to tack 3 times to get back 'in' to the coast. The wind we have now must be a borderline Papagayos. According to the guide when this wind blows you must have 'one foot on the beach', meaning that you must stay close to shore. Unfortunately for us this wind is almost on the nose when going back down south. But we still averaged about 8 knots with 2 reefs in, when it gusts to 35knots we go up to 9.5 knots, exciting and scary. Also quite tricky to tack in these winds, Chantal and I have a good system for tacking...our biggest problem is still when the new working sheet gets stuck on the mast...
Anyway, kids have been a bit uppity...we are all getting used to sailing again after farting around the marina for a glorious 10 days. Chantal has been taking antibiotics...she has had 2 days in a row now without a headache...say that must mean something...maybe I will check this evening wink wink.
On our last morning in the marina I gave shimmi a top to bottom fresh water wash down, she was sparkling after that...soon after that Indie made two massive poo's on the deck and rubbed it all over with his hands. Just after I cleaned that up I saw pieces of black soot all over the boat...turns out a nearby volcano was doing its thing...so in no time at all (half a day after leaving the marina) shimmi was covered in shit and pieces of charcoal...sometimes you just can't win.
Anyway, all is well, nothing has broken that what wasn't broken already! One thing though, last night when I tried to drop the main it was stuck: would not come down, tugged on the pull down to no avail...then suddenly it came loose and came down...dunno what caused it...a bit of a worry...have to go up there soon to check the sheaves...i put some lube on the cars...this morning the main went up fine and it came down fine for the 2 reefs...but still its a niggling worry...
