We awake early and have some coffee, yogurt and my favorite, cookies. The fuel dock opens at 6am and we want to be ready to leave the dock soon after that to top off the tank and head out by 7. No problem getting fuel. One of the forms I filled out at immigration allows us to get duty free fuel which is about a 20% saving over the regular price. Cost per liter is about $1 (that would make it almost $4 a gallon) which is a very good price sure wish I needed more. We back away from the fuel dock and head to sea at 7am.
On a passage it usually takes us about 3 days to get in a routine of watch standing and adjusting to the movement of the boat. After clearing the pass and moving into Open Ocean the boat starts tossing around in every direction (Jeri Lynn knows what we are talking about). This is not for the squeamish. Even for us after sitting at the dock for a week you need a little something to help get you through the next 24 hours. For Barb and me it is usually one Dramamine before we leave port and we seem to do OK. If the seas are real rough on the first day we might need to take another but usually one does the trick.
We clear the reefs and go on a heading of 167 degrees. The wind is blowing 25-30 kts and the seas are running about 3-6 ft. More wind than we like to see and it is blowing from the SE which is the general direction we are headed. For us to sail the boat we need to change our course more to the south, 180 degrees. Because we are headed too much into the wind and the wind is so strong we need to turn the engine on to maintain our heading. This is pretty much what was expected maybe stronger winds than we thought but should only last about 24 hours. Because the boat is pitching and rolling so much we were not in the mood for meals. We got by on stack food, oranges, apples, potato chips. Crackers and cookies.
This being our first day out, in a while, we have to adjust our body clocks to our watch schedule. Usually during the daylight hours we have no watch schedule. So we each take short cap naps. After 7 pm Barbara went to bed (couch in salon) and I took the watch until 10pm. At 10 I got her up and she was on watch till one then I took it till 4. Barbara came back at 4 and stayed on till 6:30am and was just too tired to keep going so I took over. We don't get too concern with watches during the day because we would be a hard target to miss. At night we are on the watch for other ships so we can get out of their way. Very rare that we ever see one but it is something you always think about.
Our first day back at sea went pretty well. Except for some big wind we had a good day. This is Destiny back to 1-6.
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