Nov 5, 2012 Monday, at sea, 25.28N  113.19W

My shift began at 2am.  The moon is up and Alan is looking very tired.  Check the course, adjust the sails.  He is off to bed and I am sailing alone through a beautiful night, lots of stars, bright moon, rolling seas but not too big, strong wind.  I have finally figured out the system for logging our position every hour.    Find logbook and pencil.  Find flashlight.  Find GPS and turn it on.  Scroll through the screens to find the data I need.  Put GPS down.  Hold flashlight in teeth while writing info in log book.  Put flashlight down.  Check course and adjust position.  Pick up GPS and go to next screen.  Hold flashlight in teeth... You get the picture.  The course is one that I can steer without too much difficulty but I can’t take my eyes off of it for even a minute, so when I have to log our position we drift off course.  Alan had set the wind vane but about 1/2 hour after I came on watch, it popped out and I could never get it set back so no auto tiller for me.    Since I can’t read or write I entertain myself by singing and looking at the moon and stars and listening to chatter on the radio from other boats.    Apparently there is a group of them close together and close to the finish line and they are trading locations to be sure no one runs into anyone.  From time to time there is a light in the distance from another boat but no one comes close. 

Somehow 4 hours pass.  I am bored but not sleepy soI let Alan sleep as long as he can   When he gets up it is time for the morning radio roll call to see where everyone is and be sure everyone is OK.  Alan takes the log book to plot our track and compare it to the course that we plotted before we left.   Unfortunately, during the night, despite my best efforts, we had drifted well to the west.  We need to sail east and south to get to Bahia Santa Maria and we need to get there before dark.  Because of the wind direction, if we sail east we don’t go south and when we sail south we get pushed to the west.  We spent the day trying different tacks and different sail combinations and taking turns napping.  Eventually in the afternoon we started the engine.  According to the radio chatter other boats were having the same problem.  We finally arrived about 5pm, along with 2 other boats.  We found a spot to drop anchor, cleaned up and picked up all of the stuff that had accumulated over the past 2 days, had dinner and went to bed.  We are definitely not the party animals of the fleet.