Still no wind . . .

Our sails have hung limp for three days. This means that school has started up again. Jannelle is back to learning about Central American countries and Bianca is working on her math. Deb is back to being a teacher and I have been fixing and improving things. This is one of those things about sailing that non sailors don't hear much about. You spend less than 1% of your time in gales and heavy weather, but spend about 30% of your time in very light to no wind. This is not typical North Atlantic weather, but one thing we have found in 20 years of sailing is that there is no such thing as typical weather. Our trip up the St. Lawrence river was supposed to be a nice downwind course as the prevailing winds are "always" from the southwest. We had east winds most of the way. We did a lot of tacking, waiting, and used our engine carefully and ended up making the 3100 mile trip burning less than 100 gallons of diesel. We are on a sailing adventure, which flies in the face of modern life. On the one end we could have taken the money we have invested into our floating home and flown in a jet to all the places we have been and eaten out and lived in hotels and probably come out about even money wise. But we firmly believe that we would not have come out even experience wise. On the other end we could have a vessel with no engine or electronics and be a purely sail vessel that burns lamp oil in its navigation lights. As with everything there is compromise. We use our engine for safety. We use the engine to avoid bad weather, and to get out of situations where the vessel would be endangered without it's use. Otherwise we try to sail as much as possible. This is a sailing vessel.