We're having a dickens of a time getting to the equator! There has been little if any wind for the last two days and we still have about 450 miles to go to get across what they call the ITCZ, Inter Tropical Convergence Zone. This is where the wind and currents from both the Northern & Southern Hemispheres collide causing some unique weather. Some refer to this as the doldrums, although there are times of excitement when a squall develops quickly and you get doused with what seems like buckets of water and wind (if only it would stay). This zone last week was about 50 to 100 miles across, the weather file today showed it to be about 4 - 5 times that size. We have limited fuel, enough to motor for three days straight or about 300 miles. This leads to some heated philosophical discussions about is a tank half full or half empty, and how much should we keep in reserves. Mary and I are closer to being purist, we'll bob around for a few hours before starting the engine. Our crew, who is on a time schedule, wants to fire up the engine as soon as the winds drop below 8 knots (we've negotiated down to 5). Ah the life of a captain.... There are some reported cyclones east of us and one that we see on the weather chart of the South Pacific west of us about 300 miles that is trending north east, hopefully we'll get a little wind from either of these systems. Enough for now Joel