Day 131 "Over the bounding main"

Position @ 1900 - S16º21 W160º07 - 24 hour distance traveled = 121 n miles
The wind and waves picked up throughout the day and by mid afternoon we were rocking in 8 foot seas and the wind was a steady 15 to 20 knots. There were occasional squalls with rain. This is likely the result of the low pressure area we saw on the map before we left.
This was another day of reading and watching out for other boats although we have seen none and no lights at night. Is there no one else in this part of the ocean?
By nightfall, the wind died down a bit but there still was no moon and with the overcast skies, the night watch is a bit trippy. It is like bobbing around inside a cave.
We had gotten a little lax in our use of the safety harness so today Mark did a little sit down with all of us to remind us of the proper safety rules. Especially at night, the safety harness must be warn at all times when there is just one person in the cockpit and it must be clipped into the jack lines whenever anyone goes on deck outside the cockpit. It would be one thing to fall overboard during the day but in the black of a moonless night with 8 foot waves it would be good-by. No one wants that.
A note on falling overboard - from someone who has not done it and does not plan to. There are several safety measures if there are other people present. One is the "horse collar" buoy which is attached to a floating flag with a light attached. This is thrown to the person in the water to help find them again. Another is the "MOB" button on the GPS. It place marks the spot where the button is pushed and will chart a course to return to the same spot. The last is a set of man overboard drills that are a standard part of learning to sail. This entail a set of turns that can easily be done in a sail boat to return to a set spot. They depend on the direction the boat was sailing at the time but within a few minutes the boat can be maneuvered to the position of the person in the water - assuming the current has not taken them somewhere else. That is where the horse collar comes in. The lighted yellow flag marks their current location and the light helps find them at night. Of course, if you are alone in the cockpit when you fall over and the boat is set to autopilot, the first time anyone discovers you are gone would be at the end of your watch, which could be three hours and 15 to 18 miles later. In addition you would not have the lighted flag. Even in this warm water where you could tread water for a long time, recovery would seem unlikely.
I plan to stay safely in the boat.