September 30, 2010

Texan Thong

The sky is baby blue with a few puffy white clouds on the horizon. The ocean is a deep dark blue with ripples on top and gentle small rolling slopes which is creating a beautiful contrast to the sky. The wind is just like a warm summer breeze coming across the beam of our boat and keeping me at a perfect temperature. All of our sails are out and getting enough breeze to keep them full and not flogging. Artemo is gently leaning to one side and cutting through the water at a very comfortable pace. I was starting to wonder if I had been lying way back when I said that I liked sailing. Now I remember finally what I liked about it! It is so nice to be sailing and not to be scared and looking for the next squall. Graham and I have been able to sleep in the cockpit for the past few nights and the star filled sky has been breathtaking.

All of us are happy. Life is normal on board. Amelia is making bracelets. Jules from Simpatica taught her how to make lanyard pulls (similar to mac-ro-may) and she took this skill and converted it into very cool and trendy bracelets! I am the proud recipient of the first one. Alex has been busying himself with making lures, changing out lines, making daisy chains (double hooks), pondering different types of bait and dreaming of fish.

We have been checking in on the SSB every 6 hours and chatting with Simpatica and Scotch Bonet. Yesterday we were all remarking how nice it was to have such a light breeze and how it was the perfect weather for an ocean swim. Artemo sails well in the light winds and given this we were making miles on Simpatica. Louis suggested that once we caught up we should have an ocean swim party! You can just imagine how excited the kids were. All day we plotted our course to make an intercept with them. Pretty cool that we were able to find them. Once they were in eye sight it seemed to take forever to get up to them. The whole time I am wondering what the heck is going to happen once we get there. Once we are close we see Louis jump in the water with his trade mark Texan thong! As we pull up closer Louis holds up a rope and tells Graham just to grab it and tie up and we will just drift along with Simpatica.

Louis makes it all seem so easy. If it wasn't for him I am 100% sure there would of been no open ocean swimming! The swell was pushing us up on Simpatica and I had to put her hard in reverse. We did managed to tie up and it was so weird to be attached to another boat in the middle of the ocean. I knew what was coming next....the kids wanted in the water. We untied the ladder and they all got in. I stayed in the boat and made sure we had no collisions. Graham was a bit nervous. He said he knew the chances of something getting you out here were very slim but it still was a bit unsettling. I watched as the three of them and Louis hung onto the rope in 15000 feet of water. YIKES.

Once they were all safely back on board I knew I couldn't let the moment pass and not have a dip. I climbed down the ladder by myself and submerged myself. YAHOO! I screamed out in joy......if mom could see me now!

We are about 3 miles behind Simpatica now. We are so hoping we can catch up to them and PASS EM! We want to give them the Perry moon show! Fingers crossed for us.

2 comments:

  1. wow, sounds crazy. i can't believe how many crazy things you guys do now. how will you ever get by with plain ol' living once you're back in canada?

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  2. I don't want to be seeing any perry moon shows when I get there :)

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