We left Fajardo, Puerto Rico under beautiful conditions. The wind was around 15 from the east to north east and was predicted to be the same for the next five days. We decided to sail east of the Bahamas on a nice comfortable reach. Carlos (our wind vane self steering system and valuable member of our crew!!) took over the helm leaving the watch standers to watch for ships and occasionally make corrections at the wheel if a wave knocked us too far off for Carlos to correct. In the photo Josie and I are on watch with not a lot to do. a lot of books got read. After five days Michael and I were looking at each other wondering when the weather was going to turn on us. We have never had such ideal easy sailing for such a long period and knocked on wood as we talked about it. The weather reports we were getting were predicting more of the same with the winds getting lighter. An early tapical wave was moving up from the Caribbean and predicted to reach the Bahamas, but we should be well north before it arrived and would not affect us.

The moon was waxing as we set out becoming full on our third night out. It was so bright out the majority of the passage that when it was up only the brighter stars were visible. Just before sunset we caught a Mahi mahi. Fresh fish for dinner. Yum.

Can't believe I have been so bad about updating our blog. Much has happened since our last post. We are back in Puerto Rico on our way to Florida and then back to Charleston for a month in preparation for cruising across the Atlantic for the Med. We have spent the last almost three years in the Caribbean, most of that in the Virgin Islands. I will try to do do a whirlwind update during May of what we have been up to and then do better in the future.