Hauling Ass

We are making some good time to Spain. We should be there about 9 am tomorrow. The original estimates put us in port around 2 or 3 pm. I guess they were going to just use one engine but Captain Mike decided he just wanted to get there and get it over with so we're running both engines. I wanted to make sure that I did a water change in the tank while we were still at sea so that I don't have to make synthetic water, so I just did one. At 8:00 at night. I had thought I would be able to do it tomorrow, since we were going to be at sea most of the day but Matt called me to the bridge to tell me we were making better time than he had anticipated.

Here is the main reason I don't want to have to make seawater - that Reverse Osmosis unit still scares the hell out of me. The last thing I want is for that hose to pop off again while I'm not around and flood the pump room which will then seep into the galley and cause major problems. It takes about 30 hours to make enough RO water to do a water change, so I really don't want to sit in that pump room and babysit it for 30 hours. By doing a water change now, I was able to refill the reservoir with seawater which I can use for the water change on Monday. I will technically still need to do a water change on Thursday (which is the day Neil gets back) but at least it's only one. I figure I can run that RO unit for a few hours at a time for a few days and get enough water.

Anyway, we took off from the Port of Nice after getting our fuel and installing the fire suppression bottle at about 2pm. I tried to find reasons to wander around outside so that I could look for "charismatic megafauna" - otherwise known as big animals. I didn't see anything until this evening I caught a glimpse of a single dolphin in the light shining off the water from the moon. I watched a beautiful sunset from the Bridge where I was hanging out with the new officer Matt. Then I went to the aft deck to see the amazing full moon. I'm going back out there soon to check out the stars. I have a cool app for my iPhone that shows me the stars and constellations.