At a little after midnight Manjula woke me to help set sails. We had been motoring since dinner in light winds, but now the wind was back. Various lines wrapped around things at the top of the mast in the process, and so it was with the delight that only sailors know that I spent 30 minutes raising the main sail at midnight. It is noteworthy that in addition to my life jacket and harness, I was wearing only swim trunks and yet was totally warm... in fact broke quite a sweat.

After we got the sails sorted and quit the motor, we woke Kurt and proceeded to watch the countdown to the equator! Our GPS display showed Latitude 00.01.987N, which meant we were about two miles from 00.00.000.(the equator) As we have traveled south the numbers continue to decrease. Once across the equator the numbers will begin to increase and the string of numbers will be followed by an S for south.

So we all gathered round and taking our best bottle of rum in hand had swig and watched the numbers tick down to 00.00.000. Right at that moment we all snapped our photos and took another shot. Then we went outside and Manjula poured a generous amount over board to King Neptune which is a tradition. I thought she was pouring a bit too much of the rum over board especially when we all realized she was pouring it into the dinghy. Oops! But on the second try King Neptune got his rum and with me wearing my silliest captains hat I pronounced all pollywogs to be shell backs. A cheer went up from Endless Summer and I kid you not that the wind picked up immediately. Really! And away we went sliding over the waves. South we go. South we go.

By my watch at 4:00 AM the wind had carried us into another area of confused seas. This one had a nice corkscrew motion mixed with the bang, bang, slam of a small on coming sea. No one slept whether on watch or not. We spent the first half of the day in this confused sea trying to find the right course and speed to make the ride more comfortable. Slowly the confused sea began to diminish and by afternoon we were making great time again.

We are now officially out of fresh veggies. They actually made it a long time. For tonights dinner Manjula and Kurt cooked potatoes, coleslaw, and bratwurst. We ate outside in the warm evening breeze and watched as the stars came out.

We are still talking with other boats most days on the SSB radio. There is a group that will be making landfall over the next few days, and another group behind us near Mexico. Others are to our east on their way from the Galapagos Islands. On boat is about 150 miles form us. We may actually catch up to them in the next couple of days.

We have less than 700 miles to go now and we are all feeling happy to be on the down hill side of the voyage.

Cheers