100 Ways to Entertain

One thing that I have learned very well this last week is how many activities one can do in such a confined area. Our boat seems even smaller when contrasting it to the vast ocean around us. There also was a bit of inner panic today when we decided to calculate how many days it would take us to reach the Marquesas if we kept at the pace we are going right now. We are still going unbearably slow, and celebrate when we make it past 1.5 knots. According to our calculations, it would take us 467 days if we kept at this pace the whole time… We are just hoping that the weather forecast is being honest with us when it says that the wind should pick up in a couple days.

The activities we came up with have gotten more and more creative with each day aboard “Far & Away”.  Today alone, our family was playing the guitar, playing the ukulele, reading, Me teaching Orin, Eli and Teyauna how to make friendship bracelets, making pizza, baking cookies, writing, playing mind games, P90X workouts, napping in the sun, cracking corny jokes, having funny, nonsensical conversations, playing music and dancing to it, doing laundry, chasing each other around the boat and a family movie night watching the Life of Pi… In case we get into the situation of being stranded on a boat with a Tiger…

Dad even had us try every little thing possible to make our boat go faster. Taking the jib in and out, from one side to the other, moving the mainsail in each direction and even taking the mainsail down and putting it back up later… I think all the sail-work was more out of Dad’s boredom than the actual need for adjusting the sails. The best part was when we went from 1 knot to 1.2 knots after taking ALL the sails down. Meaning that the current is probably pushing us more than the wind is at this rate. But despite the slow going, we are making the best of it anyways and have been eating very well! You’d be surprised with the gourmet meals one can create when you have a LOT of time on your hands! And thanks to the two youngest (Teyauna and Zakary) and a bit of help from their parents, we all have clean laundry hanging out to dry.

8:20 pm PDT, Lat: 20° 32.426′ N, Long: 120° 21.630′ W, Course 201° T, Cloud Cover: 30%, Barometer: 1010 hPa, Temp: 20°C