Tuesday, June 17, 7:00am boat time, 17 deg 00 min N, 179 deg 14 min E. We left Rongerik one week ago today. We are not where we thought we'd be, but we are having a nice leisurely sail through the tropics in calm seas heading east toward the date line along latitude 17N. It's a bit slow, but quite pleasant. Currently, we are making 5.3 knots in 5.6 knots of apparent wind. Mark is having a rest (I, the morning person that I am, take the 6 to noon watch ;)) and I am enjoying a cup of tea in the comfortable morning temps in the shade of our red spinnaker. Off Tempo, a Yamaha 30 that left Majuro three days before we left Rongerik, has managed to maintain their lead. The light conditions allow us to open hatches down below making for a nice temperature at night and bearable at high noon. I was thinking we'd be digging out winter gear by this time. Instead we are stocking up on vitamin D in anticipation of our return to Alaska! It looks like we should be able to head north in the next day or so though, which will soon have us adding layers. In the meantime, we are enjoying these moderate and warm conditions. 800 miles down, 2700 left to go. P.S. Wind died around 10am, so on went the motor and in went the fishing line. Somewhere around noon we had a fish on and as we pulled it in, the sun danced off its metallic skin through the deep blue water making it look like a school of iridescent fish. We landed a large skipjack tuna and Kiri awoke to partake in the fish cleaning. Fresh sashimi tonight for dinner! This will likely be the last pelagic fish until we get to salmon waters. At 04:19 UTC we crossed the dateline 180 degrees and back into yesterday. Even though we are still very far south, it feels a little closer to home.