[password] brucelaura
[position] 1 30S 29 42 W
[status] Monday, February 17, 2359 UTC
Day 11 Getting this in just under the wire at 11:59 pm. It's been a long day! After yesterday's post we had about 4 hours of torrential rain. Glad to be on a boat as it was the kind of rain that makes you want to start building an ark! But there was no wind in it and it's tropical-warm so not a problem, just very wet! We had our dinner in the main salon instead of the cockpit for maybe the first time ever off shore. The night was pretty clear with the Big Dipper on our starboard side and the Southern Cross on port.Today was spent repairing the mainsail. Laura stitched on new webbing and Bruce reinforced it with small nuts and bolts. Sounds easy but we broke 4 needles and had to use an acetylene torch to heat an ice pick to red hot to burn holes for the bolts (there's some kind of hard material sandwiched inside the sail cloth to make the clew area strong and stiff so it was a b!tch getting through it). And all this in the equatorial heat and no shade! We took a lunch break (r
an out
of propane so Bruce had to switch tanks half-way through cooking lunch) , did the last bit of stitching, and reattached the clew to the end of the boom and flaked the sail. Now we just need some wind to check it out. Laura crashed for an indulgent 2 hour nap (we each sleep about 5 hours each night over 2 off-watch intervals and supplement with a 1 hour nap during the day). Bruce did his laundry. Then we pulled out 2 of our 6 20-liter fuel jugs and siphoned diesel into our fuel tank. Bruce grabbed a 1 hour nap before sunset. And then it started to rain again. Fortunately a cold dinner had been planned as it was sweltering down below with all the hatches closed and the engine running. Bruce took the first watch. Laura sat on deck in the cool rain for a final rinse before going to bed. And now it's midnight. Whew!

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