Wayne made a nice dinner and he and I listened to Dana tell stories about the varied characters he's met over a lifetime; insights into a side of life I have had little experience with.

We continue to run the engine as
there is no wind to speak of.

Gorgeous day about 370nm from Sint Maarten.

Instruments.

Last night while looking for parts to improvise an allen key I found the labeller. I finally put some reminder labels in place to help me remember not to make stupid mistakes when tired. IMHO it should be wires so you can't start the engines in gear.

Yet another beautiful sunset on the Atlantic Ocean with rain streaming down in the distance.

Wayne just snapped a very rare good photo of me with an amazing sunset as a backdrop. It might have to become a new profile photo.

I did not lnow Wayne could sing. He's in the cockpit playing guitar and singing Margaritaville very nicely.

Wayne just played a rendition of Son of A Sailor Man ...

Wayne just saw a Sint Maarten bird which is quite far from home given we're 391nm out.

Dana tells me the winds have shifted and that we have changed course headed towards Sint Maarten, finally.

Woke up late again. I guess I needed the sleep.

The upside to all this work is that this watch passed seemingly in an instant.

Dana is on watch now.

We still have no wind.

I had the thought that maybe I had not taken the angles of the hex
heads into account and tried again. It wasmamcontortion to get imto thenright position but after some trial and error I was
able to find the right combination of hex heads and a way to insert them that worked but it was terribly fiddly and prone to dropping the tools potentially down the shaft.

Wayne came up with an idea but since I was making progress we kept trying. In an attempt to get a better angle we emptied the locker which contained an impressive amount of gear.

I then tried to climb in but sidn't fit.
Wayne tried but couldn't make the angles work so I went back to being bent over at an unfortunate angle in fanger of hurting my shoulder. All this effort got is maybe two turns and I was already spent.

The problem was that bolt was had been working it's way loose and if it came all the way out there would be mlno way for us to retrieve it not to memtion we feared the top may be badly damaged if we got a good wind not to mention the stress on the bimini from all the flexing.

I had thought we might use a 3/8 ratchet but the available space would prevent that.

Wayne then mentioned his idea of using a bolt, a washer, and two nuts to fabricate a tool if we could find a bolt of approximately thenright size. From the last crossing I remember the compartment forward of the port forward cabin. I went to look and found everything in there had been tossed and was covered in water. I straightened things up and found a nice set of wrenches and a tray of assorted hardwar with one bolt in it that might work. Wayne pointed out that the washer was intended to prevent the bolt from falling through so I went back and found a washer. I suggested that the risk of losing the tool was pretty high so we should come up with some safety. Wayne initially suggested string but the omly string was too thick. I suggested a length of electrical tape but then the tool wouldn't spin. Wayne mentioned safety wire. While Wayne taped up the bolt head because it was just under sized I got some safety wire to prevent the tool from falling down the tube.

I don't fit into the locker because I waste too much space so Wayne, being of a more efficient and optimized design, sat in the locker and slowly tightened the bolt and managed to get it pretty tight.

As an added bonus, this was the source of the squeak.

We put everything back into the locker.

For this kind of exertion where I'm contorting myself, I wear out quickly. I'm properly beat.

All told we worked on this for 2:15 ... so the majority of my watch. During this time I made sure to check AIS and radar every 15 minutes or so ...

Wayne and I make a very good team.
He is very good at improvising. I should have thought of the bolt solution. It's something I've dine many times in the past ... thankfully Wayne thought of it.

This could have been Bad(tm).

Wayne had the idea of using two hex wrenches to maybe turn it but we couldn't find a combination that would work ... hmm. The set is SAE and the bolt is metric I presume.

My fear is that if the bolt falls out we won't be able tomretrieve it and the bimini will not be able to withstand the force of the sail.

The post holding the solid bimini up and on top of which the traveler is connected is moving. A very large allen bolt that is difficult to access that secures the thing has come loose and is getting looser, Wayne just noticed. We're concerned if the winds build something could break. Unfortunately, Dana doesnnot have an allen key that large so Wayne is trying to improvise something to at least tighten it a bit to prevent it from completely backing out.

My swiss multitool has seen a lot of use
on this trip by all of us.

Having working instruments is really nice but still there's simply too much going on to rely on the instruments alone.

After a while not just at the helm but also deciding how the sails should be trimmed at what course, one starts to develop a feel for it. Down in my cabin while dosing I was able just by feel to tell what was going on with the sails.

Another watch. It seems a little darker than previous nights.
Wayne said the wimd started slowly shifting in our favor. Fingers crossed. To reach Sint Maarten without a couple huge catamaran tacks we nees it to shift another
35 degrees. Our destination is at 150 and the wind is coming from 150 (or so)

I think I must have gotten over 2.5 hours of sleep.

Wayne made dinner.

Where are the tradewinds? The unusually light winds we're experiencing continue to blow directly from where we want to go. A large high pressure system has been sitting north of us for several days blocking the easterly tradewinds from their normal pattern. The best we can do is sail at the closest angle we can to still make forward progress. Catamarans do not sail into the wind well. The general limit is 60 degrees off the wind, though we're pinching out 45 with the sails as tight as they'll go. With wind coming from the southeast, one tack puts us heading beyond south, the other just above east. While we could motor directly into the wind it's also slow and we need to conserve what fuel we have left. My judgement is the south tack is best right now though it's almost a coin toss. The high pressure system is supposed to move away and the winds shift back to their normal pattern soon. piloting tonight I'm watching for the subtle shifts but currently the wind is just dying down. If it gets much weaker I'll need to pull in the headsail and start the engine burning more precious fuel. Not the best of sailing right now. Time to go tweak our heading and try to maintain speed.

Dinner in the shadow of my drying laundry. We're earing in the cockpit again. It's really nice out.

We're still running the engine. Fuel is getting tight.

Another dinner to 9pm watch done. Dana handed me the helm motorsailing. The wind picked up a bit so I altered course
10deg West so we could sail and shut the engine off.

The stars were once again brilliant.

I pndered how fatiguing it has been to sail as close to the wind as the boat is capable. It involves being constantly vigilant that the wind doesn't move more than a few degrees towards the biw. It it does the sails sound ugly and the boat slows to a stop.

Tiring. Also, I think because Wayne and I have been sailing the boat full time mow it adds a level of effort
that wasn't the case on the last crossing. I did my watches but then had little responsibility due to inexperience. Now I'm involved in every detail and over days it seems to take its toll.

I am fatigued.