Off to See the Wizard, or at least Neptune at the Equator! Dear family, friends, and followers, I apologize you haven't heard from us in so long. Our Nuka Hiva adventures are now posted on sailblogs.com. We love to hear from you but do not use reply button; start a new email. And we are finally on our way for the big hop from Nuka Hiva to Mexico, a reverse puddlejump.

We have been away now for 24 hours and are beating to weather; pounding would be a better word. That means close hauled and going upwind as best we can. In the first 24 hours, my kindle expired, a block (pulley) for the first reef exploded, and Gloria is seasick. Seems somewhat ill fated, but we remain optimistic. We are at about 7S and 139W with about 500 miles to the equator and we are going about 4.5 knots. Every now and then, a big wave crashes onto the bow and sounds like we hit a drift log or something. It is a big adjustment after a month in anchorages to be heeled over 15-20, and walking on a bucking bronco. Pincoya is heavily loaded and lumbering along. We are hoping that when we get to 3N we will get to the equatorial countercurrent and the breezes will be more southerly and lighter. That will allow us to do the easting we need. We are in the meat of the tradewinds now where it always blows from the E, and today 16-22 knots. We'll remain in them until the Equator about a week from now. On the plus side, the sail repair we did to our main sail in Nuka Hiva is holding, we've filled up our water tank with the water maker, the battery is full, the sun is shining, and Gloria's weight reduction program is working. And (Ta Da, drum roll) we sailed all night with Willie, our Monitor wind vane steering system, for the first time ever. At this point it looks like Willie can steer us to 3N, at least we hope! And our tow generator, wind generator, and solar panels are working well taking care of our electrical needs. We'll report back in a couple days; we expect this trip to take 35-45 days.