Confessions At Sea_ The Calm After The Crazy __ Sailing Across the Pacific

Good morning everyone, day 1, technically day 2, we left, we had a night so it was definitely day 1. But we left during the day, so, I don't know, we are 18 hours in, we are 100 miles out, and the seas have been very nice to us, Mother Nature's been very good, we only had to motor for a couple hours right off the bat to get out of Salinas, and now we're cruising along, sails out, 7 knots, we're making good time, really nice time, I'm just sitting here. Super thankful for our very favorable sea conditions, it was so crazy before we left, I just didn't have any time to do food prep at all, which I normally do, I make like salads and dips and easy snacky things and chop up lots of veggies and fruit, and I had no time. So, it's nice and calm, well, as calm as you can expect, so, it's food prep day. And Jason can nap or hang out, whatever, I've got an eye on the helm here, got good visibility out all of my windows so I can see everything, and I've got my radar going, and I can control all of this from the iPad, even our autopilot, so if I needed to adjust course, I could do that as well, so, still keeping an eye on everything, and working in the galley, it's a beautiful bit. What are you doing? It's been 24 hours, I think it's time to test my epoxy job. With water? Oops, sorry. Are you testing it with water? No, rinsing off the salt. Oh, wouldn't that be awesome if you could come out of the shower like fully clothed everywhere? Prompt to clamp, hope it worked, gotta go back in the shower. Moment of truth. Okay. Feel strong? I'm not gonna test it, are you crazy? Yeah. Hopefully it's good enough. Perfect. That wasn't supposed to happen. Let's try this again. Oh, it's too late. Dude, it is incredible. If the weather stays like this, it is going to be a beautiful long sail, because it's nice and calm right now, I'm sure we don't have a lot of wind, we're only going like 4.5 to 5 knots because we only have 9 knots of wind, but man, it's peaceful, and the moon is out, and the clouds are there, and so it's bright, it's very twilight-y outside, it's beautiful, absolutely beautiful. It is just a little after midnight, and I'm on watch. I've been kind of doing these longer shifts, you know, kind of like you're on watch until you don't want to be on watch anymore. So far it's working out, we'll see, but it's allowing us to sleep longer stretches, or to only sleep when we're tired and then when we're awake. I just laid down and I was out for like a good four hours, and then Jason came and woke me up, so I'm just kind of happy to be out here. Peel food. Look at that sunrise. Oh, check out all the dolphins. Holy cow. Just go on forever. Good morning! They're going right in front of us. Yay! Come by, say hello! Hello! Whoa, big jump. They're so pretty. They're on a mission. Obviously, it's laundry day. Nikki stayed up really late, so she's taking a nap. Time to wake up, love. Sleeping beauty. With your mascot. It's almost sundowner time. Perfect. Love for you too, Cleo. I don't know if you can see that, but there are these slow rollers just coming over, so it's like rolling hills almost. It's very mesmerizing. It's kind of like a drumbeat, just that consistent ocean swell. Now that is one downside to making bread while underway. The waves crashing and just kind of hitting us from the side is just enough bang to make my rise fall. So it's not quite as lofty as it would normally be, but still bread nonetheless. And it is a coconut oat bread. I will put a link to my recipe in the description below. If you make this at a non-bouncing way, then it will rise higher. It's about 11 o'clock. It's a beautiful, absolutely beautiful night. And I can't complain at all. Five knots, four and a half, five knots we're doing speed and ten knots of wind. It's sort of downwind-ish. It's just absolutely Mother Nature has been so kind to us. And I cannot tell you how great this experience is right now. Three nights. This is our third night out. And just having time to sort of ease in when the seas are calm. It's just been, we're so fortunate, so fortunate to have this beautiful few days. You know, last night, actually yesterday afternoon, I was feeling a little queasy, but like a hundred percent today, which is awesome. Nikki's taking over. It's 11 o'clock. She's taking over about one. She's amazing. She cooks. She's beautiful. She's just so strong and smart. Man, she's like my rock. My best friend. She's everything. These past three months have been the most difficult months that we've ever experienced together. We've had more disagreements than we've ever had before. And I think it boils down to the boat. You know, in the RV, which we did for seven years traveling, it was just a lot less stressful. And, you know, editing a video, shooting a video, coming up with a story, staying positive, finding something fun to film that's challenging and enjoyable is a full-time job. That's a full-time job. And then throwing the boat, like maintenance, is another full-time job. And then planning for just this French Polynesia trip, going through the Panama Canal, and, you know, the road trip that we took in Ecuador, it's all, it's just so much work. It's enjoyable and it's fulfilling, but, you know, I watched so many videos and read so many books about living on a boat before we decided to take on this lifestyle. And, I don't know, you read that it's a lot of work and you read that it's a lot of money, but I'm telling you, and you're listening to me, you're probably not going to believe me, you probably won't understand it, but it is insanely stressful. And it's really, really trying on a marriage when you're two people together non-stop to deal with everything that encompasses this lifestyle. It will either pull you apart or push you together. And days like the past three days have just glued us right back together. Not that we were having that many issues, it was just, you know, having more arguments. We hardly ever argued, but being out here and enjoying this lifestyle and having this disconnectivity from having to plan other than looking at the weather, it's just, this is what it's about. And once we get to French Polynesia, we'll be in the South Pacific and hopefully we'll be able to dive more. And we just, there's just so much hope for the next 20 days at sea and in the next six months to a year exploring these islands. There's so much to look forward to. And hopefully we're in a better place and we can make better videos and balance our time better and take care of ourselves and our personal health much better. And now I just dropped a bomb on you, that's like, wow. It's just been that amazing being out here. And I'll leave it at that. She's amazing. This is amazing. I'm feeling really fulfilled right now. Let's just say that. Oh, and by the way, it's a little chilly. The wind kicks up and it's actually cold. So I'm wearing pants and a sweater.