A beautiful sunrise this morning. We are nearing the NE Trades because the wind is slowly shifting into the eastern quadrant. According to our weather man we should hit the trades at 111 degrees West which is tomorrow. I put the spinnaker up this morning to take advantage of a dying breeze but it only lasted an hour or so and we are now motorsailing charging batteries, making water etc.. s/v Marcy with Peter and Ginger aboard was about 200 miles to the south west of us last night (they left three days before us)and reported passing through a heavy shipping channel about 100 miles wide right we we are now. They saw 10 ships in the space of 24 hours so we need to keep an extra good lookout over the next day relying more heavily on the radar rather than our own eyeballs. The radar can see 24 miles - we can only see 4 miles. We set an alarm to go off every 30 minutes so whoever is on watch can remember to look around.

We went to the movies last night and saw Kevin Costner in "13 Days". It was a bit of a cheat for Deb because the movie was in her watch period when I was supposed to be asleep.

s/v Talerra with David and Melanie on board are on the same latitude as us but 55 miles closer to the Mexican coast. We are now out of VHF range so can't just pick up the radio at any time and have a chat - we have to rely on organised sked times using the HF radio.

It's quite a bit warmer today (29 degrees down below) but the seas are very flat so we can have all the hatches open without the danger of copping a wave down below. This morning's activity plan included a game of bingo in the forward cabin and a round of croquet on the foredeck (just kidding). Reminds me of a story I once heard from a friend of Ian Kiernan. He was sailing on one of his many single handed trips across the Pacific and saw a ship coming close to him. He went downstairs, changed into some clothes and came up on deck with his Number 2 wood in his hand. The ship approached only to see a very concerned golfer looking out towards the horizon. The Captain hailed Ian and asked if all was well and Ian responded with the question: "have you seen my golf ball anywhere?"

STOP PRESS: Co-Captain here:-Suddenly our Alternator stopped charging (which is like the power being disconnected from your home) and after an hour of trouble trouble shooting the skipper found the problem, a little devil of a wire had come loose, which has happened before. He keeps saying to me it's usually the obvious and most simple thing. We're underway again, motoring as the breeze unfortunately has totally died. #

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