If yesterday was the slowest watch ever, this evening's was the fastest! The 4 hours from 6pm to 10pm FLEW by. As soon as the off watch left, we shook out the reef from the main sail to get more sail area up. Then the wind rose to over 20 knots and it became apparent we were over powered (lots of traveller work happening), especially since we wanted to point high to the wind tactically - something the Yankee 1 is not well suited for. So we did a racing sail change, getting the smaller Yankee 2 on deck and out of its bag, hanked onto the forestay beneath the Yankee 1 and ready to hoist. The Yankee 1 was dropped to the deck and unhanked, then the Yankee 2 was raised. We made good speed at a closer wind angle, adding about a knot of boat speed, and more in terms of Velocity Made Good (VMG) - the gains we make towards a target point. But it didn't last. We had just reflaked the huge Yankee 1 sail, tied and zipped it into its bag and wrestled it into the sail locker, when Matt called for it to be redeployed. Out of the sail locker it was shoved, then the bag was positioned on deck and tied to the guard rails, the sail hanked on. Down came the Yankee 2 and up went the Yankee 1. Yankee 2 reflaked, bagged and stowed below. Whew! But no rest for the wicked, other than a few moments to gulp down some liquids. The wind was dying, about 8 hours later than predicted, but as predicted never-the-less. Also it was shifting direction, moving behind us. Time to run the spinnaker lines in anticipation of raising the big balloony sail, Code 1. I went forward to call trim for the pit crew, since the Yankee and Staysail had to be let out to meet the new wind angle. Meanwhile others worked to get the Code 1 bag on deck. We got the sails drawing nicely, but it wasn't to last more than a few minutes before Matt called for the spinnaker to be hoisted. The hoist went smoothly, and my job was to trim the sail, sitting on the high side with the sail sheet in my hands and around a winch, commanding 2 grinders to "grind! (please)" as needed, at other times easing the sail out, to meet the changing wind conditions. There was much tidying of the decks to do, with lines strewn everywhere and lying atop one another. Keep in mind that, except for the initial shaking out of the reef, this was all done in the dark. Nearly pitch dark. The sun sets early and suddenly hereabouts. There was cloud cover and no moon. Several crew wore red headlamps, switched on as needed in order to sort lines, set lines onto winches, etc. White lights were shone on the sails regularly to judge trim. Night sailing is very different than sailing by daylight, and with other Clipper boats around us, we had to keep a sharp lookout as well. We enjoyed about 20 minutes of settled sailing before it was time for watch changeover. The on-coming watch was delighted to be able to ease out of their bunks with the boat relatively flat as opposed to having to clamber out on an extreme tilt. Little did they know what awaited them... Sail changes, wooling and repacking the spinnaker, setting up the Windseeker, taking down the Windseeker, Yankee and Staysail up, Staysail down, Staysail up... We all agreed these were the most engaging watches so far on this leg. In stark contrast to the day before, time zoomed by and energy was high. It seems the green monster has left us and we have learned how to prevent dehydration. We are settled into our watch system routines and functioning well as a team. The results are proof. We are sailing with the lead pack, passing Cuba in the distance on our port side and Haiti on starboard. Not that we've had time to notice. There's a lot of snoring going on below decks...