Passage log: 323 nautical miles

Bob McDavitt (NZ met service) advised us to avoid a strong north-going current at 85 west, so we tacked to the east for about 25 miles yesterday evening, then came back on course. Our current waypoint is 9S 90W --- this is the start of the real trade wind part of the passage. It's currently 428 nautical miles (about 3 days sailing) from our current position. There is an extension of the ITCZ (with squalls, rain, and calms --- the doldrums) that angles from north to south just to the west of the Galapagos. The squalls are between 3S and 4S and between 85 30W and 90W. Our current path should take us to the south of them.

(Sal- the NZ service - which we found advertised in a weather book we purchased recently - has been fantastic ... you pay some and they give you all sorts of weather, current and routing info so you can work out the optimium way to go through this l-o-n-g passage (one of the longest between anywhere and anywhere)... we never had to pay much attention to currents until we came to the Panama and Humbolt current (strong current going N from Antartica coming up the Sth Am coast. Parts of the current are up to 10 knots against you.... we've been able to avoid all that. Rog has the computer all set up to monitor set and drift (direction and speed). Right now we seem to have about a knot with us... that's a lot over 30 days... about 24 nautical miles per day. - just a comment for the novice... back to Rog... oh another thing for foodies - we are on our last day of salad... next coleslaw for a few more days and then onto "Just Tomatoes" and Suprise (NZ) dried veggies - fruit and veggies don't last worth a dam out here!)

We have seen no other boats (fishing or ships) for nearly two days now. We are currently just at the outer edge of the Peruvian 200 mile limit, just south of the Ecuador/Peru ocean area line. We'll be clear in a few hours.

It was another beautiful evening and sunset. Our "ghosts" gathered in a flock on the downwind side of the boat and then started trying to catch the lures. Tane and I tried to capture a photo of the gulls with the setting sun as a background---I think we got at least one good one. The gulls make a strange chirping squeaky sound. The flock seemed bigger last night, and the always surprise with their ghostly flashes of white in the darkness.

The wind died down to 5 knots as night fell, so we started motor sailing. By early morning, we had 10-12 knots and were doing 6-7 knots sailing.

This morning there was a flying fish and two small squid on the deck. How do squid end up on deck? Are they attracted to the navigation lights and then splash up onto the deck? Or to the birds catch them, then miscalculate and drop them when they have to avoid the sails or rigging wires?

A school of skipjacks has been around us for several hours now. They're chasing flying fish and something smaller. They leap right out of the water and tumble in the air in their efforts to chase prey. Regularly, a large school of flying fish takes flight just ahead of us. It seems the skipjacks are taking advantage of the boat --- the flying fish and smaller fish are surprised by the boat and flee right into the mouths of the circling skipjacks. Now we just need a few sailfish and marlin circling for the skipjacks. So... there are two groups taking advantage of our passage. Sal - Skipjack meat is very dark red... we don't to eat it - other do. R & T have the lures out for the big fish that may feed on them... so far no bites. I don't participate in any of the fishing... just the eating.

The sailing conditions are the best we've ever seen. The swells are small and there is very little chop. Our course takes as parallel to the chop, so there's very little resistance. Although Tane saw a little rain on the radar in the dark early morning, none of it has fallen on us. The popcorn trade wind clouds are back again.

This seems to be the year of microphone problems. First, we had to replace our main VHF radio because of bad microphone. Now the microphone on our SSB (Single Side Band---the "big" short wave radio) is giving problems. We can't check into the nets, although the radio itself is working fine as we can hear everything and can transmit and receive emails (the email transmission is computer controlled, bypassing the microphone transmit switch). Oh well! So we can't chat to other sailboats on the way, but we can email our positions to the Pacific Net so that the sailing community knows where we are each day. The closest other sailboat seems to be about 200 miles. We will be asking Bruce McLelland, a NZ boat guest if he can bring one to the Marquesas when he joins us in a month.