Daily Update 02 May 2009 - Wind!!

Questionable Logic
Ewan Briggs
Sat 2 May 2009 22:29
Position at 1600 GMT-5: 3 03.4N 81 18.2W
 
We've covered 158nm over the last 24 hours. The good news is that the wind turned up. The bad news is that it was pretty much on the nose and about 20-25kts across the deck. So we've had a pretty bouncy 24 hours, reefed down to #1 reef on the main and the #4 jib for most of the night. We've been pushed slightly north of our track, but are now getting the backed winds forecast and are making some better ground south into the more favourable winds. The wind has dropped again to about 12kts, and the seas are also dropping which is nice. We're still hard on the wind making as much ground to windward as we can and hoping to be able to free off tomorrow for a more comfortable and quicker run into the Galapagos. About 450 miles to go, so we're looking at pm on the 5th if we make good progress, otherwise am on the 6th.
 
Still no fish - although it sounded like we got something on the rod line - but it managed to escape pretty quickly.
 
No more strange shapes following us during the night, and no phosphorescence dolphin shows, but we still had the clouds and lightning and some good star gazing too.