The lack of wind continues and the motor continues to run. The best thing about this is that we don't have to worry about the batteries being charged. The forecast is for continued light winds from all four corners of the compass so we will use what we can, if we can, when we can. Night Fly continues to be off our side about five miles and doing the same. One other thing that good is that we hopefully won't break anything on this slow voyage. Now last night, as I sat in the cockpit, I was struck by what has changed in sailing over the last 10 to 15 years. In front of me was 1: computer running a charting program with our AIS (Automatic Identification System) running on top of the chart display. 2: our wind instrument, knot log and depth sounder. 3: our Radar showing what is around us going out 12 miles. 4: engine gauges-RPM, water temp, oil pressure and volt meter. 5: our Garmin Chart plotter( now considered an antique by Garmin). 6: our Robertson/Simrad autopilot display. And 7: our IPad giving us even more information. We're not in a sailboat cockpit, we're in some high tech information and communication station. Go back 20 years and much of what we use and take for granted didn't exist but thank heaven it does now. We get up to the minute weather info 24 hours a day. It may not be that accurate sometimes but it beats nothing. We have the latest chart info, again, sometimes not the most accurate. Some p laces in the Maldives, Seychelles and Madagascar were close to a half mile off but we knew where we were thanks to GPS monitors on our boat. The charts may be off but our eyes aren't. Cruising today is far safer than in any generation yet boats are lost(one went down a week ago here in Madagascar when it hit a reef, clearly marked on the chart). Masts are lost when rigging fails in a storm that wasn't forecast. Sails are torn and shredded in big winds that strike during the night(or day)with out notice. It happens out here far more than we ever realized before we took off back in 2009. Electronics have made cruising far better but it sure helps to use your eyes. So this morning came and with it a bit of wind. Tracy came on deck just about 0600 and up went the forestaysail. Nope, for it to work, we would have gone in the wrong direction. Down it came. Later, it looked like we could use the genoa sail. Out it came. Nope, the wind died off almost immediately. In it went and on came the engine. It's now almost 1400 and she just keeps purring along below decks. I just checked our fuel and we still have over 2/3s full tanks so we are in good shape. Now the weather forecasts we've gotten are for continued light winds for the next 48 hours so we will do what we have to. Still no current running down the coast to help us along. We know it's out here. The electronic charts we downloaded on our Iridium Satellite system(something else that didn't exist that long ago)tell us so and hey, they wouldn't lie, would they? Well, the day has passed and the engine is still running. Some wind has come up and we are motor sailing and will probably turn it off when Tracy comes on watch. The wind is now between the 45 and 60 degree mark so I think just sailing is in our future, Yesterday, we had whales come and visit with four Pilot Whales playing off the bow for a while and a short time e later we had another group of much larger whales breaching off the starboard side about a mile off. We could see them clearly flying into the air and splashing back into the water over and over again. We had a freighter come down the shipping lane right at the stern of the boat. Our AIS showed it would pass us just.25 miles off our side. I called them on the VHF when they were ten miles off and they responded that they saw both Night Fly and Zephyr and would change course. I called them again when they were five miles off our stern and they still hadn't changed course. They had increased speed by a knot and we're coming closer to Night Fly. They promised to change course so they would pass about five kilometers off our side. As they got closer, we watched AIS program on the computer as they slowly changed their course passing as they promised five kilometers off out side. I called them later to thank them. It's now just after 0300 and I just came on watch. Just before I went off watch at 2300, we finally got some luck and hit not only some good current but wind of about 7 to 10 knots out of the southeast letting us sail again. We already had the main sail and forestaysail up, all we had to do was roll out some of the genoa sail. We pulled out about 70% of it and we took off hitting into the upper 7 knots to lower 8 knots of speed. That's really fast for Zephyr. It's now four hours later and it continues so we are doing all we can to stay in the groove we are in. Let's hope it continues. We've searched long and wide for this. About 0345, shortly after Tracy went off watch and we sped up, I was scanning the horizon looking for any ships that might be around us. We didn't have the computer that runs the AIS program running. We were going so fast that we had an occasional wave smack the side spraying water here and there(we had the side panel up on the dodger so we were sort of safe)we wanted to make sure it didn't get any water on it. We've already lost two computers since we left Thailand back in February. We couldn't take the chance. Anyway, I saw the lights on the horizon so I went below and brought the computer into the cockpit and got her booted up. Up she came and I started up the program to see who was off our stern. As it was booting up the program, I glanced back and saw what I thought was a ship was actually the Moon coming up. I guess the adage of "better safe than sorry" applies here. Anyway, I found that we actually have no ships, other than Night Fly anywhere near us and that is just fine with us. Night Fly appears to have not gotten our boost of speed, though they are a smaller boat and can't fly all the canvas we do after loosing some of their rigging and sail coming down from the Seychelles. They have some work to do once they get to South Africa. We're still doing in the high 6 knot range with a good 1.5 knot current pushing us along. It now 0530 and time to put this post to bed. The wind has slacked off a bit but we are still moving along just fine thanks to the help of the current and the 8 knots of wind we still have.