Here we are on day three, I think...one really looses track of days out here. This journey has been slow enough that I've had lots of time to look at our surroundings for hours at a time. We have had a pod of dolphins come visit us a couple of days ago. These were smaller than the ones we normally see and they were spotted, but they had lots of play time in our bow wake for several minutes before the main pod continued on for their feeding times. They are always fun to watch.

Yesterday, we were both in the cockpit and Bill heard a "whoosh" of air...that only comes when a whale is really close and has come up for a breath of air. Sure enough a huge, I think probably a grey whale, came up for air about a 100 feet behind Zephyr. How exciting!! I went down for the camera, but this guy was shy and only surfaced once more then went on his way heading North.

Last night it felt like we were back in the ITCZ again. It looked like we were in the middle of an upside down bowl. We had blue skies over us, but really ugly black clouds around the edge of the bowl surrounding us. They were either raining or threatening to do so for hours. We did finally get that torrential rain that leaked through every zipper in the bimini and dodger, but did get the salt off the decks and the sails got a good wash too.

This passage has been comfortable and very pleasant. The swells are only a foot and a half so we haven't been rolling a lot. I haven't had to take more than two doses of anti sea sick meds. Cooking has been fun and easy. Yesterday, I made a bruscetta that we put on broiled pita halves that had toasted parmesan cheese on the tops. Yum. Today, for lunch, I made bento box style lunches for us and had fun making carrot roses for a healthy garnish. Chistine, our friend on Teka Nova, gave me a couple of "food" magazines that have inspired lots of food thoughts, so I figured why not put that to good use, it beats boring passage food ie Vienna Sausages out of a can right?

I'm looking forward to the great food markets that Davao has to offer, I saw one picture and it had more veg than I've seen in months, maybe even since Fiji. I miss leaf lettuce and the salads we used to make in Fiji so much. I'm hoping that there will something similar in the Philippines and across the S.E. Asia route we take to Thailand.

The only other thing that I found very sad, but interesting in a disgusting sort of way is the river of trash we have come across out here. It started yesterday and continued in an appalling way today. Tons, and I mean tons of discarded plastic trash, lots of floating plastic bags that were just under the surface. Medical waste, food container waste, bottles of every shape. It just made me sick to my stomach and really sad that I couldn't put it out of an otherwise pristine ocean. Well, enough said.

More later.......