Update from Passage to Eleuthera, Part One

We left Cape Fear two days ago to start our passage to the Bahamas. So far we have traveled 292 nautical miles and have a little over 200 miles to go. The conditions weren't bad when we left; the winds were light enough that we had to do quite a bit of motor sailing. During my first night watch the winds picked up enough that I thought we would be able to keep our self-tacking jib filled. I put my headlamp on, unzipped the enclosure to reach the roller furler cleat and, lying on the deck right next to the cleat, I saw a small flying fish. I paused a minute to consider what I should do. The fish was staring up at me and not moving. I wasn't sure if it was dead or alive. I finally decided to try to grab it and toss it overboard. As soon as I touched the tail it started flopping about and wiggled away. I made one more attempt before giving up and leaving the poor little thing to die.
Breeze On makes quite a few noises when we are out at sea and we always feel more comfortable when we can identity the source of the noise. During my watch there was a new, rhythmic slapping noise that I couldn't identify. I looked all around the cockpit and didn't see anything banging. I shined the spotlight on the sails and rigging and couldn't find anything obvious there. I went down into the cabin and couldn't find anything there. While I was in the cabin it seemed clear that the noise was coming from above. Oh well, maybe George could find it. When George came on watch we decided to roll the jib and drop the mainsail. As he was tucking the sail into the cover he did find the source of the noise. One of the battens had worked its way out of the sail and most likely hitting the mast as the boat rocked back and forth. George also found three other unfortunate flying fish on the deck.