Day 12, Atlantic Crossing

1230Z 29DEC18, Day 12, Atlantic Crossing. Yesterday afternoon cleared up to be sunny and warm. We were able to continue on the port tack into the night. This kept the refrigerator running and we made a good course. Once the winds shifted back to ENE we gybed back to the west. Over the course of the day yesterday we shook out all the reefs in the main and we put up the asymmetric. There was not much wind through the day and into the night. We swapped back to the regular jib when we gybed overnight and winds built back up to 15-20kts. Wind has shifted back to the east so we will gybe south again and get the refrigerator back on.

Current Position: 16 26.7N 039 34.4W
24 hour progress: 126nm, 5.25kts avg SOG, 1705nm total progress, approximately 1180nm to go.

Everyone is doing well. With the lower winds and slower speed yesterday things were very comfortable. The downside is that the slower speed pushes out our expected arrival date. The upside is that there was a monopoly game amongst Jon and the boys which the boys love. We expect the winds to pick back up and keep us moving through the 1st or 2nd when it may slow again.

We had the fishing line in again this morning and caught a small mahi-mahi which will be a poke lunch after awhile. We saw what looked like a school of tuna in the water - and the boys really want to get another tuna - so we put the line back in. We then caught a large mahi-mahi when we passed by a metal pallet. We actually saw quite a few fish in the water with one following just aft of our boat for about 10 seconds. Unfortunately we didn't get the big beautiful mahi-mahi onboard. We should have gaffed him but we were busy and still cleaning the other smaller mahi-mahi. Oh well. Line is back in and we still have meat that needs to be eaten before it goes bad in the refrigerator.

Time zones: we don't really know what the formal delineation is and it really doesn't matter to us. We are aiming for Barbados and they are GMT -4. We left the Canaries which was GMT. We all stand informal watches during daylight hours and then Jon and I swap back and forth in the nighttime hours. So as we have moved west we move dinner to coincide with sunset and hope that the boys sleep until sunrise. Currently that means we have moved back our clocks twice and are functioning at GMT -2. We will change again in about 3 days and then one more time, 2-3 days later.