We are so close to being back in the land of acronyms! We figured that there'd be a bunch of squalls through this area to welcome us back, as last year, according to NOAA, it was a "drought" year but wetter than the Amazon in our opinion! We've barely had a few sprinkles in the last week. Love Song really needs a good washdown, and I'm sure the rains will come. At least this year, thanks to Allen and Majuro's Ace Hardware, we have the hard dodger, whereas last year on the trip from Tonga to the RMI, we had jury rigged tarps over the cockpit to try and keep from being constantly soaked! No pneumonia this time!

Since we caught the big tuna the other day I had my fill of sashimi, and we have 10 jars of pickled fish that I canned, as well as a huge vat of fish jerky. But I'm still looking forward to Mexican night at RRE (Robert Reimer's Enterprises) and some MEC blackout tuna. (Maybe it's better because someone else is doing the cooking?) YUM

The last two nights we were really tearing along at well over 8 knots, so 5 knots tonight feels rather sedate. One look at the dogs and you know if it's a good ride or not, as Dallas puffs like a freight train when she's stressed, and they both dig their toenails into the cushions with the pitching and rolling. Only one small mishap yesterday, the bowl of cookies went flying off the table and shattered into a thousand pieces on the floor, which I had, of course just washed! Whoever said that Corelle dishes don't break? The big OWIE was a couple of days ago when Wyatt went to use the head and the door flung itself hard on a wave and crushed his little fingers in the doorjamb, bursting his nail beds on two fingers. My poor baby:(

I'm sure the second we are on the mooring ball we will go into hyper drive for a cleaning frenzy, before we crash and burn. There's a ton of laundry for sure, and things that have shifted around or been flung out of place need to be tidied up. The poor guppies' jar is green and they probably don't have any O2 left, but the odds have been in their favor! We left Majuro with 10 and are coming back with 7! The boys have been making a fort nearly every day with all the cushions in the salon, into which they hauled their checkers game, legos, and plastic army men, all things that are small and somehow make their way into the bilges and must be extracted!

Otherwise, we are so tired at this point the boys must think we are the laziest parents on earth, despite my conscious effort to "live as usual" while underway. If I were motivated I would spend my night watch Betty Crockering, baking someone happy! I certainly don't see how people can sail singlehanded. I do see how we should get a bigger boat that comes with crew, so they can sail it while we sleep! ha ha

The moon has been keeping me company a little longer each night, and tonight it's a really gorgeous silver pathway across the water, a Peter Pan flying ship kind of night. I must go plot our position on paper now, so good morning to all of you!