Second Day Of Our Voyage

Well, we had a rough ride last night!  All the worrying I did ending up making me sick when I woke up.  I was trying to pull my self together to do my watch at 6:00am.  It was about 30 degrees outside and required to put lot of layers on.  After getting all the layers on, I finally made it up to the cockpit.  Only to end up getting sick.  So, there I am puking about 4 times over the rail while Paul kept steering the boat.  After getting all that out, I started to feel a little better.  What a great start to the day!  Paul ended up staying on the helm for a while for me.  I ended up taking the SSB Radio Call in this morning, which is normally Paul's job.  I ended finding out that there was a low pressure moving to Bermuda by Thursday and we needed to get through the Gulf Stream immediately to avoid crazy big seas.  We were just beside the stream, so we altered course and we entered the gulf stream.    So, I went down to wake Mike up to help us and relieve Paul for a while.  When Mike came up on deck he started puking too.  Thank god Paul has a steel gut.  So, now we have two crew members down.  Mike pushed through and ended up getting the stay sail down anyways.  After about an hour.  Mike and I were feeling better.  Meanwhile, Jim stayed up too late in the cockpit last night and ended up fatiguing himself.  When he woke up for his shift he had the chills and could not get warm.  Now we have 3 crew members not up to par.  Poor Paul stayed at the helm for 6 hours.  Mike took over the helm for him next.  Paul and I talked about our situation.  I told him I didn't feel comfortable taking the helm at this time.  We had 12 to 18 foot seas with wind of 25 knots with gust to 35 knots.  The boat was currently going 7 knots. So, all crew was on deck.  We put the stay sail down and then we put another reef in the main.  Surprisingly we were still going 7 knots and the boat was much more comfortable to be on.  What a difference.  Mike and I felt almost a 100% better by 1:00 pm.  Shortly after Paul and Mike ended up seeing a school of Dolphins.  In the afternoon Paul and I were on watch.  He started whistling for dolphins.  We were looking all around for them.  Then right beside our boat we saw the outline of a whale.  It was only 6 feet from the boat and about 30 feet long.  It never came to surface, but it we pretty close!  I told Paul not to whistle for the dolphins anymore.  I was feeling comfortable so watched the helm for a while so Paul could get some rest.  Jim was still feeling bad.  He ended up sleeping until about 8:30 pm.  With all this going on, we did manage to get through the gulf stream by 5:00 pm.  Paul ended up surprising the crew with a celebration of ice cream sandwich's for getting through the gulf stream.  Everyone was feeling better and everyone was planning on doing there watches for the evening.