Underway - Day/Night 1

We got off to a nice, but slow start. We motor-sailed out of the bay and when we turned our motors off just outside Cabo Corientes, we only had about 9 knots of wind and were making 3 knots speed. And so it went. We put a reef in the main before Andy went to bed just for good measure (and because I asked to) and now...
Here I am on my first night watch in a long time and conditions have changed drastically since Andy went to bed. Wind is up to 16 knots (very nice) and we're doing almost 8 (I'm in my happy place at 61/2 - 7). The wind is coming on our beam which makes for a funny ride. I have to say, this speed scares the bejesus out of me. I'm still trying to get back in the grove of things. Night watches can go either way... tonight I'm trying not to let my mind take over and just go with the flow. Andy asked me what I was thinking earlier and I told him, I'm trying not to think anything. If I think too much, I just might ask to turn around. So here I am, after listening to all my playlists on my iPod, attempting a French podcast (did you know those were all in French?), and doing all the exercises I could think of, I'm distracting myself with a blog post.
We decided to extend our normal 3 hour watches to 4 at night so that in theory, we could get more sleep. If all goes well, maybe we'll up it to 5 hours later in the passage. Some good news is that I'm feeling great (although I am questioning the decision to have hamburgers for supper). A lot of folks were worried about us leaving today since I've been sick, but all is good here. No headaches, no queasy stomach, no tiredness (yet).
It's getting up to 17 knots, pushing 20... it's times like these I remember how much I don't know. Should I wake Andy up and put another reef in? (I know that's what I would LIKE to do) Should I slow us down by adjusting the sails or our course? I know, you're thinking "geesh Monica, it's your first night out!" Cut me some slack. I haven't done a night watch in months and I've never had the daunting task of crossing an ocean in front of me...just getting my sea legs back.
For now, I'm going to watch the wind, put some Uncle Kracker back on and keep watch on this boat coming at us on AIS...
Update from the morning... Watches went well for both of us. We've gone over a hundred miles since we left yesterday. We were able to check in with the nets on low power (kind of a cruiser conference call) so our radio is working really well. Jake slept well and we're trying to power up this school thing again for the first time in a few weeks. He says he's feeling queasy and needs a break. I don't know if he really is or if he's already figured out a ploy for delaying school work? Andy is on deck breaking out the spinnaker. Our winds have been good but they're petering out a little bit now. I think he just wants to practice... All is good on Savannah. Thanks for tuning in!
By the way, you'll notice a new link above our picture on the blog. So far, it's not working. It was my intent to send our position so everyone could follow exactly where we are. The e-mail preprogrammed into our computer (and the email address I wrote down off the website) is not working so I'm stumped. I'll let you all know if/when I get it up and running. In the meantime, if anyone already using this feature knows the current address for yotreps, send me an email wdf4139  (AT) sailmail (DOT) com - keep it short and sweet, no attachments, no address books, no spam - but you already know that, right?).
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