Day 7 of Crossing from MX to FP

We will have another 36 hours or so of these bigger seas and continue our way SW, trying to keep the seas behind us, though they are coming from three different directions.  Seas still about 6-9 feet and steep.  I was a bit green last night, but doing better this morning.  We are paralleling the eclipse path of totality; two more days to go and hope we can continue this course. 

Not great cooking seas, so granola for breakfast and leftovers planned for dinner.  All day we continued on our same SW course, dropping into 12N (each degree of latitude equals 60 nautical miles, so we are 720 nm from the Equator).  Winds up to 20 knots, seas impressive and rolly, cloud cover about 90% with fluffy cumulous clouds; no signs of squalls or thunderstorms on the horizon yet. 

Kids did some fishing, watched a few nature shows that I downloaded on the Pacific Ocean, read; the sea state makes it tricky to do much more.  Lunch was salmon dip and guac with chips.  None of us super hungry today.  Calder’s handline caught a large fish, but we were coasting down waves fast (11 knots!) and lost it before we could reduce sail and slow down.  He thinks it may have been a wahoo, teeth marks and chomped his lure in two! 

Going into night, we take down our big Code 0 sail and put up our smaller genoa.  I admit apprehension going into the dark with massive (have grown to 6-12 foot) waves behind us, as I can’t see them or anticipate the movement of the boat.   We have made good time today, but are looking forward to the seas settling tomorrow.

Total miles over the last 24 hours:   146.3 nm (our second longest day!)

Average speed in last 24 hours:   6.1 knots

Total miles of trip so far:   875.5 nm