Trying to catch the wind

There's been precious little wind out here for the last few days. Every
little breath of air we try and catch with our gennekar, or dreamcatcher
coming to think of it. We have become experts at raising and snuffing our
dreamcatcher single-handedly, day or night. 95% of the operation you do
from the safety of your helming station. Piece of pie on a catamaran. 5%
is to flake the gennaker on the foredeck ready to fly again at a whim. In
stronger conditions we will have all hands on deck and safety harnesses
clasped to lifelines. We've got 8500nm to go, and 51 days will leave us
with 5 days for a Panama transit. Our ETA in San Francisco is 5 April,
which will give us enough time to replace all the sheets, lines and
halyards, and prepare for the Oakland Boat Show which runs from 10 - 13
April. Required average is 6.9kts and still well within our reach.
Alternating between port and starboard we keep the motors running to
maintain a reasonable average. I am not sure if we will be able to
maintain 6.9kts sailing up the West Coast of America, and therefore have
to try our very best to make up some time beforehand. Miles in the bank so
to speak. We shall wait patiently for the wind as the moon and the sun
also patiently waits for their time to shine.

Back to our dreamcatcher, I guess it is flying a kite. Have you ever had
the pleasure ? If not I highly recommend you find out how to build a kite,
find the materials, build your kite, find an open piece of field, and go
fly awhile :) Or you take the short cut and go buy one, assemble it, and
off you go. Be a kid again:))) You will the perhaps experience "yugen" /
yoo gen/n. (japanese) an awareness of the universe that triggers an
emotional response too deep and mysterious for words. Without a little bit
of wind though, your kite won't fly :(((

We've had a mixed bag of weather during the last few days. First it was
grey and overcast for a day or two. Then it cleared quickly and some small
with clouds drifted in. We normally associate these with the trade winds,
but no tradewinds yet. Yesterday we had open skies with high thin streaks
of clouds. Alto cirrus if I am not mistaken. Last night the waxing moon
was outshining most of the stars and in the early hours some clouds moved
in. Just before sunrise we had a decent spell of rain, and the boat looks
bright, fresh and clean in the sharp morning sunlight. A little rainbow
also smiled at us. The clouds all around us now are more substantial.
Towering here and there with a grey underbelly. The current is also cross
counter to us at times, then swings right around to the other side and
slowly turns in our favour again. We were heading just north of St.Helena,
but our weather office informed us that there is just no wind up there.
Should we pass south of the island, we have got a better change to get
some wind now and then. Altering course 10* to port we get a better angle
on our sail and heading straight for the top of Brazil. The South Sub-
Tropical current runs between St.Helena and Ascension, but by crossing
just below St.Helena we should catch the current soon enough. And then
slip into the Guiana Current up the Brazilian coast. This is normally our
fastest stretch to the Caribbean.

Our French photographer has also been rather busy with his GoPro. "In the
box" is his way of saying he captured something on film. Taking the
gennekar up and down, fish following us, he caught a flight of flying fish
on film, a short clip of Stuart servicing an engine. He finds things to
film and then sits on his Apple Mac and figuring how to edit his videos.
The instructions are in English, so it takes a little longer. If the
instructions were in French I would not have a clue. But we hope to post
some good material once we get to Panama and wait for our transit.

From behind there is a fair sized cloud moving in with a bit of grey and
some wind. I have to get back to work :) ... Ok !!!Our dreamcatcher is
flying again. 6 - 7 kts apparent wind, holding nicely, motoring and
getting up to 6.5 kts. Once the swell forms and we start sliding down the
slopes, we will gain momentum and our dream of getting the boat there on
time once again shines bright like a diamond :)

In a nutshell, all is well out here with us. Have yourself a really good
week. Your choice. And go fly a kite ........ :)))