Before leaving on this trip, my mom and sister bought me a 40 gig iPod (biggest at the time) and filled it chock full with music and audiobooks. Chris and I had both had iPods in New York, but typically only used them as a distraction while at the gym or on the subway. Little did I know how important this little piece of technology would become to me on the boat. We loved the ease of being able to plug it in to our stereo and play music for hours without a thought, and on night watch I could keep myself entertained for hours discovering new music. Audiobooks soon became invaluable. While I love to read, it's difficult at night because wearing a head lamp messes up your night vision for a few minutes after you turn it off. Often that is too long for comfort. Listening to books alleviated that concern and was also frankly easier.

Unfortunately, iPods and boats don't really mix. We started out with three (Chris' original, my pink mini and the 40g) and they all had died by the time we reached New Zealand a year later. While we were very careful with them, I think the salt environment was just too much. Lucky for me, my sister is an Apple freak and likes to upgrade her iPods as frequently as possible, meaning I get her old ones. Actually, I think she uses my loss as a reason for her to get a new one, but in any case...when she came to visit in New Zealand, I got a new one full of new music. And so the story goes, not quite a year later, this one has also died. I went home for a visit shortly thereafter and was lucky to come back with another iPod, new to me. This time I'm determined not to let this one go the way of the others. I bought a very protective case and sprayed all of the connectors with silicone spray every week. Ironically, it was not the salt air that killed it, but the salt water. I was on watch and had it clipped to my shorts when we got a fish on the line. I got so excited that I jumped up to grab the rod and in doing so, watched the iPod, as if in slow motion, bounce once on the deck and then straight into the Mozambique channel.

I figured that I was just meant to be and spent the next few months solo, with some very lonely nights on watch. To my surprise, my wonderful sister brought me a new 60gig for Christmas when she visited us in Cape Town. This one has even more music and books, but also Podcasts, a new phenomenon that Chris and I have completely missed out on (apparently along with a lot of other things). There are Podcasts from 60 Minutes, NPR News, and even National Geograpic videos. It's a whole new world of entertainment! My older sister also sent me a Shuffle which is tiny and seems to be very resistant to the elements. I can easily clip it to myself without the fear of it coming off and hardly notice it's there. So I am pretty much set, and with a little diligence and TLC, I'm hopeful that these will carry us home.

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