These light airs sure make it tough. We only did about 100 nm today. I can't remember ever going that low. But finally this afternoon we got a breeze that allowed us to put up the kite. We flew along on a beam reach for about five hours before taking it down after sunset. I am hoping we are approaching the trade winds, and the wind will start to clock around from behind us. But I also know it is still early and that we could have upwards of another 300 nm before we can kick into the venerable goldmine of wind! We shall see.

Not much else to report. Calm seas at least make the going reasonable. It could be worse -- a lot worse. So no complaints here. We have a very gentle, rolling sea, and we are thankful for that.

For those of you who have interest, here is a peekaboo on some of our mid-ocean navigation. We are supposed to enter into the ship's log every hour certain critical information such as lat/long, wind speed and direction (when available...hah!!!), boat speed and heading, distance traveled, barometric pressure, and things like that. We also note when we put reefs in or put up the spinnaker. That log is helpful in figuring out various different aspects of managing the boat.

For instance, we have been covering approximately two degrees in longitude per day at this latitude. (Remember, the meridians get smaller the closer you get to the poles.) That helps me project when and where we will hook into the trades.

Everything out here is based on the lat/long grid. We are presently at 16N; 111W. Hawaii is around 19N; 155 W. We know that when the trades do come that they will come from the NE and circle in a clockwise fashion from the E midway to Hawaii and then from the SE as we approach Hawaii. So we take that into account all the way out here as to where and when we want to enter the trades.

That is a short '101' on navigation. Of course, all of that is predicated on FINDING the trades, and that is our first order of business. We've lost them...have you seen them?!!!