"Freakin Awesome"

"Dolphins in the night"

shining shimmering, dancing diving,
for they are the dolphins in the night,
they play in such sweet harmony,
following the rythym of the bow,
like ghosts they dance beneath the ship,
lights illuminating the trails of their tails,
they come and they go with such mystery,
for they are the dolphins in the night.

..Yes we saw dolphins last night. yes it was awesome.

So far the passage has been a mix of intense excitement and lots of down time.
The start was all adrenaline,especially considering that the first time we
tacked the boat as a crew was 17 minutes before the start. In order to tack
the genoa(big head sail) we have to raise our stay sail(inner head sail) so the
genoa can pass between the head stays...Needless to say it makes for quite a bit
of commotion on the bow, but Cameron and I handled it like champions and we had
an amazing start. I want to thank everyone who was out watching the start it
was really cool to have such a big crowd both on land at Castle Hill and out on
the water. We soon hit some thick fog that lasted just until dusk where it
cleared for sunset and let the stars come out. I am on watch for 4 hours at a
time, then sleeping for 4 hours then on standby for 4 hours which so far has
just meant moving from my bed to sleeping on the sails in the salon. Today was
a beautiful day with a variable 10 kt breeze and not a cloud in sky. We expect
this weather to hold for the next 18~24 hrs, at which time it should pick up to
~25 kts out of the south. Should be exciting. Everything on the boat is running
smoothly, although it can be a bit confusing at times due to the constant banter
of german, and spanish going on. My spanish is improving, my german...not so
much. I am still trying to get a feel for driving an 88 ft yawl but so far my
only practice has been from 3 to 4 am last night so I am hoping to work on it
some more tonight. The clear weather should make steering by the stars quite
easy tonight so we will see how it goes. Everyone is in great spirits and we
are looking forward to a bit more breeze. More to come soon, much love to
everyone back home! I am off to bed now to catch some zzzzzzs before my 1 a.m. to
5 a.m. watch.

Cheers!