The sun is beginning to rise later. It was still pitch black when I started my 6am watch shift. Ray mentioned that we must be getting close to the international date line; I hadn’t even realized we’d be crossing it during this passage! The sun finally began to creep up over the horizon around 7:30AM, illuminating two large storm clouds: one behind us and one right in front of us. We already had the mainsail prematurely at its second reef, so the only preparations I had to do were rain-related. I closed the sliding window and zipped up the door of our helm enclosure. We got some rain but very little additional wind. It cleared up quickly, revealing a faint rainbow ahead of us!

During Ray’s shift, the wave height rose to ~8ft. Still, primarily from behind us, the waves are a welcomed push, occasionally giving us an extra +1.5kn of speed. We shook out a reef and sailed along nicely all afternoon. 

We ate brunch together and discussed the ethical implications of AI. Ray has been listening to a podcast detailing various AI experiments exhibiting deceit and self-preservation tendencies— where is the line between innovation and danger? I’ve been listening to a podcast about the increasingly popular “subscription economy.” We’ve traded ownership for access. For example, no one owns a collection of CDs or movies anymore, but everyone has at least two subscriptions to streaming services. Companies have made massive profits off this model, and now we’re seeing it everywhere— you can select the “subscribe and save” option on most Amazon purchases; fitness trackers and even some cars require a subscription to “unlock” all the features after purchasing the physical product. What else will become subscription-based, and what are the ramifications of this? Now that we’ve adjusted to sleeping in shifts, we have the energy (and plenty of time) to ponder these sorts of random things. 

We spent the rest of the day resting and keeping watch, bringing the main back down to the second reef before sunset. We ate spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. I was happy to read your encouraging comments on our last post about my sunset picture habit… 😉 Here is tonight’s:

Pretty fantastic! We’re cruising along at 7kn as I post this (AWS 14.5, AWA 135). The moonlight is faint but present. My shift has just ended, so I’m off to brush my teeth and take a nap. Fingers crossed, we have another uneventful night!