One day on the Rancho Relaxo of the Sas – in the Pacific

For a little change, I’m gonna give you one day in detail. Ship’s time is in UTC but we’re waaaay off the local time, so sunrise is actually at 12:30pm (UTC), sunset at 00:30 right now.

0000h: Start of my watch, Gui and the kids are off to bed around 30 minutes later. Wind: SSE4-5 course: 270, sails: Main and Genoa.
0050h: Wrote a small blog post and uploaded via HF, position report sent.
0300h: Start of Guenther’s Pacific Net on shortwave radio (14135USB). Many friends of us are on air and we exchange position, news, weather, etc. The SY Mares tells the story of three wrecked ships at the easter island (one of them german) !
0515h: I wake up Gui to switch watches and go to bed.
0830h: I am awakened by a change in the ship’s movement. (Yes, after one year on the boat that’s quite common.) The wind has increased, I get some clothes on and get outside. Together with Gui I put in a reef in the main sail. Wind now at a steady force 5, the Rancho Relaxo doing constant 6.5 knots towards 260 degrees.
0900h: Gui made a dough during her watch and now she puts the bread into the oven and goes to bed, my watch starts.
1000h: I get the bread out. Also I put the alarm to repeat every 15 minutes and take short naps in between looking for other ships. Again we have an unbelievable starry night. Three days in a row we had crystal clear air and no clouds. The milky way is clear as a cloud during daylight and the stars are fantastic !
1200h: Still dark, but the sun will come up shortly. I put the position into the logbook and record a daily log of 141 miles. (Nice !) As we also carry paper charts, so I plot the current position while smiling and thinking of coffee.
1230h: Sun comes up with a blasting orange sky. Two minutes later, Viola is in the cockpit and cuddles beside me. Bruno follows 10 minutes later.
1300h: Breakfast with fresh bread, coffee, nesquick, honey, butter – and of course: bananas.
1400h: Doing the dishes, the kids have books in their hands. Put the sunsail over the cockpit.
1430h: Collecting 13 squids and 6 flying fish on deck. One squid made a big mess on the foredeck another one I find hanging down on a rope at the mast ! We really had some big waves last night. Otherwise those animals will not fly 3 meters up in the air. I download weather information via shortwave radio.
1500h: Gui gets up and has breakfast. I’m doing some laundry – takes me 1.5 hours for one bucket. I notice the swell changes direction from SW to SE, now matching with the wind waves.
1700h: Big fishing trawler portside, a few miles away. It will circle us for the next hours.
1715h: With enough sun and wind, the batteries are completely full. I’m starting the watermaker for 1.5 hours, making about 45 liters of fresh water.
1800h: Cleaning the bathroom.
1900h: Having lunch (poissant cru). Later doing dishes. The kids listen to music and look at books.
2100h: Playing Guitar. The kids flee and watch a movie downstairs (yes, they also take advantage of the full batteries !)
2200h: I’m doing siesta, Gui takes the watch.
now: My watch again, writing blog post, listening to Pacific network…. Back to start.

LATITUDE: 02-03.56S, LONGITUDE: 098-59.45W, COURSE: 253T, SPEED: 6.2, WIND: SE4-5, DISTANCE: 2420nm