My good sleep wasn't so good after all. The winds are quite strong and the seas lumpy, so now on the port tack I was pressed up against the sealing the whole night. But I still did get enough sleep and woke up refreshed. On deck the weather midships jackrope was rigged up, and the seas were giving quite a bit of spray. It's not practical to do shipswork in lumpiness like this, so unless on lookout or helm the order was to stay on the quarterdeck. We set the mainsl, which made us have all canvas spread but the royals, outer jib, and spanker. Rebecca had me nip the port mainsl sheets to a shearpole on the lower main shrouds with some rotton cotton to keep the line from chafing on the monomoy davits. I didn't feel worried going on the shrouds (low though I may have been) with the heavier weather. On the quarterdeck I practiced my buntline hitch and learned the snuggle hitch. Then Rebecca had us box a compass to all whole points on paper, which was followed by a terminology class. This carried on a bit, until at 1450 a strange, fast-moving ship was seen off hte starboard beam. My lookout began at 1455, so I grabbed my binoculars and saw the Green Reefer pass us astern. I think it was German-flagged. Otherwise, no sightings on lookout. JImmy and I had a DMC (deep meaningful conversation) about life, then an all-hands muster at 1700 on the quarterdeck had the Captain tell us about our progress. We're about 1800nm in, having done an S-curve from Lunenburg to take advantage of the winds. We are roughly 300nm from the Anagada Passage, which is between the Virgin Islands and St. Martin. We'll go through there, then it's about 1000nm in a fairly straight course to Colon, Panama. We entered the tropics today at 1320.
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