Singin’ in the rain!

Day 14 – April 30, 2013 6:00 PM Pacific Time – Fran
Current Location: 11 38.98 N, 122 15.65 W
Heading 231 T, Speed 4.0
Sail: Full Genoa (Fran essentially refused to put up the main as she doesn’t believe the wind will hold, and doesn’t want to take it down again in the middle of the night. She will also stop referring to herself in the third person now.) Temperature: Indoor 88.6F, Outdoor 80.6 F
+/- 1,100 Miles from Puerto Vallarta, 1,624 Miles to the Marquesas

So I awoke this morning to rain! After 2 weeks at sea, it was a real blessing to have all the salt, bird poop, and dead fish and squid guts rinsed from the boat. As we have to make our own water out here (through reverse osmosis), we are very careful in our use of water. And, since I’d showered with tank water yesterday – I couldn’t really justify another shower today – except, in the rain, in the cockpit!

Tips for showering in the rain in the cockpit:

1) You don’t get to turn the temperature up, it may be quite brisk.
2) Ensure the “shower” is on high enough that you can actually rinse thoroughly after soaping…
3) It may be best to sit down for this shower – the rocking and rolling of the boat with soapy feet can lead to additional bruises. 4) Enjoy!

It was a real treat that, now that we’re in the ITCZ, we’ll get enjoy over and over.

We spent some time today motoring as we had no (zero, nadda, zip) wind. After a few hours the wind kicked up and we’re now traveling along quite nicely.

Speaking of making water – we’re doing it! We are running a little Honda generator on the side deck and making about 22 gallons per hour. We have 2 tanks each with a capacity of 75 gallons and we always keep 1 full (just in case we aren’t able to make water for some reason). So this takes about 3 – 4 hours. Probably 4 since after we stated making water, I did some laundry, and used a bunch. I didn’t really need to rinse the clothes as thoroughly as I did, as just after I hung them on the lifelines to dry, I began raining. So now everything will be really clean!

Dinner tonight: Franks and Beans! With potato chips, and diet coke. Sounds like a school lunch.

And there may be a movie in the cockpit tonight.

More later!