Not too big a deal, really. The preventer catches the main, so Galactic just ends up hove-to with a backwinded main. But you do have to drop the main to get back on course.
Alisa and the boys are asleep. The moon is setting dead in front of us.
We commented over and over yesterday at what a gentle sail we're having. The sea is flat, the winds light and behind us. Everything is comfortable, the hatches are open, and we're making acceptable speed. Elias spent a long time on the bow, alone, yesterday, looking for flying fish at first, then just relaxing with his feet on the lifelines. Five years old.
Even though Tahiti has been on everyone's "nothing special" list for the last forty years or so, there is something irreducibly romantic about sailing there.
And this passage is giving us two days to mull over the delights of our time in the Tuamotus, two weeks without the demands of work or travel, with trips ashore every day, and the delight of time spent in a part of the world completely different from any place we've ever called home.
Tahiti, and the Societies, will be a much busier time for us. We have a solid week of work to get the barky resupplied and organized, and another solid spell of science work for me on top of that.
But still, I imagine we'll manage to have some fun.
Elias had a great fifth birthday yesterday, as we were able to round up four other kids to form a quorum for a proper party on a motu beach in the southeast corner of the atoll. There were a few adult-organized games, and lots of time for the kids to just mess around on their own, and pizza and quiche for lunch, and a cake, although the candles could not be successfully lit in the tradewinds, and then an extended bought of swimming in the turquoise water. Elias might not remember it for the rest of his life, but Alisa and I likely will.
We met some wonderful people here, and felt very lucky to see Tahanea again. But now the excitement of moving on is with us, and we are considering the long road that still stretches westward.
Pictures and more details once we return to internet land.
