Half Way House

Hi Everybody,

January 28th about 1300Z and we're about half way to St. Lucia depending on how you want to look at the possibilities. Distance? Time enroute? 1455 nautical miles under the keel so far. Anyway, we're making good progress in less than completely comfortable conditions. That translates as roll, roll, roll and it hasn't stopped for about four days now. The forecasts call for another day, maybe two, of these strong ENE trade winds with a mixed 6-10 swell from the east through the north, thus the rolling conditions. We've been making about 170 miles per day under the main alone with a single reef. Haven't flown a headsail in days. Come Saturday its supposed to start quieting down and wind is to vear around to being directly out of the east. Hopefully we can make as good a speed with more sail in more comfort. It has gotten warmer and we're not wearing fleece jackets much now. Nothing new has broken, wait a second, we had a winch handle get broken off during our jibe to port this morning. That after being about as careful as possible. There's a lot of power once that boom starts coming across in these conditions.

So we've got plenty of food and water and we're warm and dry. For what more can we ask? Actually………oh well. With a little luck we'll be in port by the eighth or ninth of February.

Love to all,
Bill, Bill, Dan and Booth

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