Rock Sound, Eleuthera Island

More downwind sailing today. On the first leg the swells were 6-8 feet which made it hard for Otto (Our autopilot. We figured that he deserved a name since when we're underway he does more work than both of us) to keep a straight course. Whenever we were lifted by a big swell we would veer one way for a bit, then Otto would overcorrect and we'd veer the other way. Over the long haul, we were going straight along the course line, but between the swells and the zig-zagging it was a little uncomfortable. After we rounded the southern tip of Eleuthera the seas died down a lot and we cruised along at 8 knots. Kevin caught yet another barracuda, which makes me wonder if we will ever catch anything else. They must really like the wiggly plastic lures that Kevin is using (they are pink or green and look like a squid).

We did encounter a problem on today's trip: our windex broke. In sailing-speak the windex is the instrument that tells you wind speed and direction, not the blue ammonia-based household cleaner. The windex consists of a weathervane-type device at the top of the mast, which is connected to a digital display on the instrument panel at the helm. On the display there is a handy little birds-eye view of a boat and an arrow that tells you which way the wind is coming from along with a digital readout of wind speed. Unfortunately, now the arrow won't point straight ahead so even if the wind is coming directly at you the arrow still points a little to the right. So we MacGyvered a solution -- we just tied little pieces of string in the rigging so to indicate which way the wind is blowing. Too bad we can't rig up something to tell us the wind speed though.

Where we are:
Lat: 24 51.819' N
Long: 76 09.725' W