The sun rose around 6am, and the wind and waves began to die down. We altered course a bit to increase our apparent wind speed and maintain our speed over ground. We had shaken out a reef overnight, leaving one reef in the main and the jib on a barber hauler. Sabado was doing well. 

I went back to sleep around 9am, and Ray jibed again during his shift. For brunch, we had fruit, scrambled eggs, and our favorite sourdough focaccia. Today has been our calmest day yet. The wind blew a steady ~12-15kn, and the waves settled to 3-4ft. It’s been a comfortable temperature, and we’ve been enjoying ourselves! 

We fired up the generator around 2pm. Despite having relatively clear skies, our solar panels are shaded by the sails most of the day, so we’ve struggled to get charged. Before crossing the Pacific, my longest passage on Sabado was 9 days, and it was pretty rare for us to do more than 3-4 days. But now, having spent 27 days at sea plus a couple of 10-day passages this year, I see the value in having a few portable/flexible solar panels we could lay on deck when needed. I’m sure they’d also come in handy during long stretches of cloudy weather on anchor—another thing to add to our incredibly long wishlist, I guess. 😉 For now, I’m grateful for our generator. We’ve put more hours on it since we left Panama than it had accumulated during 5yrs in the Bahamas/Caribbean/USA! 

Aside from that, it was an uneventful day. We’re starting to feel less like zombies; it’s amazing how our bodies can adapt to the constant motion and broken sleep schedules. We ate dinner together and watched another beautiful sunset at sea, and a sliver of moon appeared. 

Surprisingly, that produced enough moonlight to illuminate the outline of our sails without dimming the stars or bioluminescence around us. It’s a beautiful night. I’ve just finished my shift and am heading to sleep as I post this. See ya tomorrow! ❤️