May 31, 2010 Day 10
39 49N 70 27W
Select a title!

Hello Everybody,

Today we thought we’d let you readers select your own favorite title for the blog, and here are a few ideas from which to choose: “The starter didn’t”, “Nice place to visit, let’s stay “, “Backing into Newport”, “Drifting along”, or the crew’s favorite “ETA never”.

If that doesn’t give you some sense of what we’ve been doing since we all fell into bed exhausted at the end of yesterday, let me provide details. We weren’t able to get the engine started, so we are under sail power only. From 8 pm yesterday when we gave up on the engine starter until 6 am we had about 16 knots of wind and the crew had lovely, if chilly (think Ruleo), sailing covering about 84 miles. From 6 am until 10:30 we made 1 mile good toward Jamestown in 5-9 knots of wind. Part of that time we were actually drifting stern first toward Narragansett Bay and a drifting Portuguese Man ‘O War was passing us! When we checked our waypoint on the computer it read “ETA never”. We were so flummoxed that we took a photo of the screen. During our 4 pm to 4 pm period we made 134 miles, a far cry from our normal 180. In the final 10 hours from 6 am until 4 pm, that’s most of today, we managed 22 miles. Through it all everyone has remained in good spirits. There was at least one ‘final’ shower on the back deck; Ruleo practiced his cribbage; several games of solitaire were either lost or cheated on; Brian & Leo demonstrated card tricks; Jake & Leo watched the first half of “The Bucket”; we had reasonable satellite phone coverage so lots of calls were made; Jake caught up on sleep; we enjoyed the 80 degree temperature in the sunshine on deck; Dave and I were both reading, most of the others have finished their books. Currently our wind is about 15 knots and we’re making 5+ knots with 100 miles to go. However the prediction is for 15-20 from the SW tonight into tomorrow, so we’re hoping for better speed.

There is new information on the fishing contest. We had a hit on Dave & Brian’s line. Dave jumped up to get it, Ruleo was closer and ran for it too with some of us saying that Dave (who had reeled in the 3 fish we’ve caught) should give someone else a shot. Jake hollered that Brian, who happened to be below in his stateroom and as far from the rod as he could be, should reel it in because it was on his side and he hadn’t caught a fish yet. Meanwhile during all this dithering Ruleo grabbed the rod and hesitated thinking he should let Brian have it. And…..the fish got away! Afterward during the would’ve, could’ve, should’ve discussion it was determined that the proper action would have been for Ruleo to set the hook and hang on to the fish while Brian came running up to finish the job. Unfortunately that isn’t what happened. So the score is now Jake and the West Indian lads 0, Dave & Brian aka the engineers 3, fish 1. At our current speed we should come up on the shelf tomorrow, so perhaps we’ll have some good catching! That’s where we generally see wildlife and we’re looking forward to it.

We had at least 3 pods of dolphins today, all just after sunrise. Since then only mylar balloons, although yesterday Ruleo thought he saw a shark in the wild seas.

All the best from the crew of avalanche, looking forward to discovering sealife on the shelf, creeping toward home, and arrival!