Mar 15 - Enroute, a typical day

Pos: S06deg43min / W020deg30min. During the night we picked up a favorable SE wind, 15-20 knots, and are now aiming at Fernando de Noronha. Our watch schedule is 3 hours on, 6 hours off, beginning at 1800 hours. Sue does a SSB radio net with other cruisers at 1900, and I've been attempting to hear our 0630 HAM net; no joy there. We've still had little success with Sailmail and have been using our Winlink connection. By 0500, water is on for coffee. I usually let Matt sleep thru the 0600 wake-up call if nothing's going on. Yesterday, I had to wake him as a ship was on AIS and closing with us. His CPA (closest point of approach) was 4 miles, but I had to get on the 0630 net and don't take anything for granted; we needed a visual watch on that ship. Matt's got two fishing lines in the water early on, but so far, no luck. We all do a lot of reading, swapping books with other cruisers or at book exchanges where we find them. "Cotter checks" are done twice daily, sunrise and sunset. This is where we look at wire terminal ends, sail stitching, cotter pins and rings, and generally check the rigging, lines and anything else. Any required small repairs or changes are addressed during the daylight, when possible, as are sail changes. Of course, it doesn't always work out that way! Have I mentioned food? We eat well aboard Infini, and our reefer and freezer (5 cu ft each) hold a lot, as do our pantry and dry storage lockers. The day goes by quickly; we still enjoy the sunrises and sunsets. Of note, as we're heading northwest, sunrise is getting later in the morning; today it was at 0720 hours. The color of the Atlantic here is a kind of cobalt blue, just beautiful. There are still birds fishing, way out here so far from land. So, hope this brief description gives some idea of life aboard; we hope you're enjoying your time as much as we're enjoying ours!