Day 15, December 9, 2014

Position    15 08.1N     56 19.3W

Distance to go:  276 miles

All is well. A bit slow going yesterday. Lost the wind from late morning to early evening with wind speed dropping to 6 kts from astern (East). Not a lot of forward movement in those conditions. That pretty much ended our fantasy of a Wednesday arrival. The wind came back up late last night and has remained in the 13 - 16 kt range. Although it has backed to ESE we have not yet seen the forecasted ENE which should remain for the next few days. I do hope the shift happens as we have positioned ourselves south of the rhumb line in anticipation of the NE shift giving us a better -faster sailing angle to approach the finish.

The weather is quite nice…clear skies…sunny…80 degrees. No new fish to report, however, much heavier bird activity as we approach land. The seabird book is out as we do our best to indentify the species we are looking at. It is interesting to note that the birds seem as interested in us as we are in them. They approach and will do several laps overhead around the boat as if curiously assessing "what is this?", as we sit below looking up at them asking the same question…curious creatures we are.

Started working on a "to do" list of repairs/maintenance projects to complete once we arrive. Thankfully it is a short and rather simple list.

Last night for dinner was "Yahoo Beans" and brown bread from a can. Now you're probably asking what are "Yahoo Beans"? So…I'll tell you...

When my daughter, Victoria and Mia were much younger and Maria was working at the hospital I often found myself making a mid day snack for the girls and I on Sunday afternoons. So the three of us would go into the kitchen and pull down a couple of cans of B&M Baked beans and then procede to jazz them up a bit. We start by sauteeing diced onions;green peppers; and garlic. Add to that some diced chourico and hot dogs. Once that’s all browned add in the beans….then add a splash of ketsup; dijon mustard; molasses; honey; worcestershire sauce; and minces dried ancho chili peppers (just a pinch -potent stuff)….hence the "Yahoo".

There you have it…Baked beans with a kick. They were never quite the same twice as often ingredients were substituded but generally this is it. The girls loved the spontanaity of this cooking adventure as did I.

I believe the crew enjoyed it as the bowls were wiped clean…very nice!

So for the next 36 to 48 hours we will vigilantly continue the useless and non-productive exercise of watching the remaining miles count down on the GPS screen. I don't know why we do it but it happens everytime …. maybe by watching…the miles tick away faster?

Until tomorrow

vcp