John's Blog Updated. Original post with photos: http://travel.reservationkey.com Latitude: 0.28333 Longitude: -128.18436

To say the sea at the equator is calm would be a serious understatement. The last two days we have had nothing but seas as glossy as my laptop screen. Despite the lack of wind, the water keeps moving though, gently rolling swells. It is like looking across a desert of low lying blue sand dunes.

The heat, combined with the humidity, is almost unbearable inside the cabin. So now I've taken to writing these updates from my new office location, up in the cockpit. With the breeze generated by the fact of us motoring through the water, conditions are much more tolerable on deck. We also have the sun shade up all day long which helps immensely as well.

Today Pascale did a load of laundry using her blue bucket and plunger. Bruce had hoped to be hoisted up the backstay in order to take a look at our damaged radar unit, but has opted to wait one more day. The radar unit stopped working early on in our passage, and a few days ago, the bracket which attaches it to the backstay seems to have given out and now the whole assembly is just hanging there loosely. Even if we can't fix it out here, it won't matter too much since we are getting close to our destination, and we have ordered a new one which we will pick up when we get there.

We are planning an equator crossing celebration tonight at 6:10pm. Although we are unable to put the Champaign on ice, we will still enjoy a glass or two. Bruce, Francois, and I are planning to swim across the line. We are lucky to be crossing during daylight hours as we hope to see the equatorial line on the water which is created by the unique angle of the sun at this latitude, but which can only be seen right at the equator. If it is not too cloudy, it should be bright enough to be seen in a photograph. Also interesting to note is that the sun is almost directly overhead at noon and that we have almost exactly 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness. The sun rises at 7:30 AM and sets at 7:37 PM. Enough for today, tomorrow we will be updating from the Southern Hemisphere.