Feb 9
Yesterday we spent most of the day at the beach, and last night was the dinner and prize giving for leg 1, we all enjoyed it. After the prizes were announced Sam had her little arms crossed and was tapping her toes and giving me "that look" - and she asked why don't we have a faster boat? Yeah, sometimes I wonder the same thing, but samsara is a good boat - just not the fastest.....
So this morning we had to put the kayak and dinghy on the boat, tie them down.....finish laundry... and then the start was at noon. It was a bit of a slow start then the wind filled in and many of the boats launched spinnakers (we launched our beautiful pink chute) and off we went. Now we're debating leave it up or take it down? We said we were going to be conservative and not fly it at night so I suspect we'll take it down, but we hate to lose the speed. So the sun is going down and we have 814 miles to go to the Galapagos Islands. We're expected to have some wind for 2 days then light air. Many of the boats anticipate motoring if needed so we all filled up with fuel before the departure.
We'll check the weather again and decide if the chute comes down before dark (we can always pull it down after dark but things can get a bit more difficult and tricky once it's night)
Pauline