Monday, May 30, 2005

Journal Entry – May 30, 2005 Pacific Puddle Jump Day 26 Tournesol Heard in San Francisco

Author: Pam

It seems after our magical moment with King Neptune and the others, he gave a tug on the wind chain (or contacted his connections) and we have been flying since crossing the equator. We have been averaging 6.5 knots and made 150 miles in 24 hours, a record since the beginning of our voyage. With this wonderful wind there are also some pretty good sized waves, bumping and banging over the port side of the boat, including through the hatch and on our head while sleeping on occasion. This makes our ride a bit like being on a bumpy roller coaster, but no complaints though, we are flabbergasted by the speed. Our celebration dinner was pretty yummy, well except for the Bananas Foster. Another treat for Nemo, perhaps the salt water helped soften the bananas. It was not the best first experience with freeze dried food, hopefully the other delicacies we have on board “unfreeze” or whatever they are suppose to do better than the bananas. We finished “An Ocean to Cross” in the afternoon after crossing the equator. We highly recommend this book, very inspirational. We started “The Incredible Journey”, a story about two dogs and a cat and their journey out in the wild as they search for their home. We decided it was time for a little break from sailing books. After the excitement of yesterday and the rolling of the boat we didn’t have a lot of energy to cook today, so we had soup for lunch and clam chowder for dinner. It can be quite a challenge to keep up with your soup in these conditions, but it seemed to do our heart and soul good as they say. We got an e-mail from our friend Richard Wallace today and learned after a number of attempts he finally heard us check in on the Amigo Net, right before we crossed the equator. How cool is that. We knew he had been taking his shortwave radio and various other equipment, including an antenna he was stringing from a tree to the park near his house (while he walked the dog) for several days in attempt to hear us. He was very persistent and extremely creative. It sounds like he had as good reception as Net Control and us, if not better. We did not have good reception and we announced that day it would be our last check in on the Amigo Net. I have been trying to conjure up the image of him standing in the park with electronics set-up at 7:00 am in the morning. He said no one approached him, maybe they thought he was trying to connect with aliens. Even the police officer who decided to stop by and enforce the leash law didn’t ask him what he was up to and fortunately only gave him a warning since Willie had had a short romp off leash. Besides his attempts to hear us on the radio, Richard has also been posting all of the journal entries we have submitted since leaving for the crossing. We do not have internet access (only access to send and receive e-mail through our SSB radio), so we send him a text e-mail with the copy and he proofreads them several times and then he posts the entries. Thanks Richard for all of your amazing support and friendship!

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