Thanksgiving Day 9

Bang! The spinnaker block came down with a gunshot on the afternoon before Thanksgiving.  The halyard (line holding sail upwards) didn't part, and the block stayed on the halyard for good fortune.  The head (top) of the spinnaker sail dropped 10 feet and dunked the foot (bottom) of the sail in the ocean in front of the bow.  I was at the helm (steering wheel)turned the boat downwind and Clint ran forward on the deck to drag the sail from the water and lower it to the deck.  More help arrived on deck from below and Bob took the helm from me so i could get on deck to help out.  The sock was difficult to get down over the sail but the real difficulty remained after that.

There had been a thick wrapping of tape and material added to the halyard to protect against chaffing.  This had gotten stuck inside the mast and was preventing the sail from coming down to deck.  Can you imagine what it looks like to have 5 crew hanging on a stuck socked spinnaker in the roll of the waves and grunting trying to drag it down to deck.  In the end it took nearly 2 hours to hook, drag, and pop the stuck halyard loose with the Starboard (spare) halyard.  Even our
cook Leanne was out on deck with us to help in this mission.  One minor big toe abrasion on Aaron was the only injury throughout the operation, my healing sliced fingers didn't even reopen.
Thanksgiving Day!

The spinnaker was bravely hoisted on the Starboard halyard and we were sailing fast when i awoke from my after-watch slumber.  Many of the hours under mainsail and spinnaker during the day we were sailing at 10+ knots directly at the island; quickly if not always smoothly. 

At 1200 i helped Lianne in the galley ready our days feast for our scheduled dinner time of 1330. 

The menu included; bacon wrapped turduckens (2 of chicken stuffed in a duck stuffed in a turkey and the whole thing was wrapped in bacon), roast and stuffed turkey (2 seasoned garlic, rosemary, PeriPeri chx), mashed cauliflower (w/ parm cheese, sage, salt & pepper), Brussels sprouts, garbanzo-corn salad with jalapeno dressing, all served with brown gravy, mint sauce, applesauce, BBQ cranberry sauce.

I didn't over eat for two reasons, cherry/berry tart dessert and we had the whole meal again for dinner in a few hours ;)  I just need to emphasize again how good the sailing was on this feast day.  Altair was in the mood to surf waves in 18-22 knots of wind on our Stbd quarter and 1-2 meter waves riding on a long period swell, she was really feeling her groove and each hour of sailing was yielding us more than 10 miles of ocean distance in the direction of St. Lucia.

Time not sailing i kept busy photographing dolphins, laying on deck under the spinnaker looking up at the mixture of blue sky, cloud, and sail cloth, and another yoga session in the main salon followed by a quick strength circuit workout.