Debi and Jack sailing on SV Iroquois

Being in the middle of the ocean is hard. First of all is the fact that you are in the middle of the ocean with all its attendant isolation and lack of any place to replenish supplies. Not that we don't have enough of what we need or hopefully will need, but since everything is unavailable everything you have either is very important or perhaps useless as the need for it may not arise. Being a sailboat it has the advantage of needing only the wind to get there, but the wind is an independent sort of entity. Often just right, sometimes not enough and then sometimes far more than needed or wanted. The boat is hard on your body, literally hard and since it is in constant almost random movement there are many opportunities to run your body into it. The movement of the boat combined with any position of your body is a sort of constant Pilates exercise class. Your core is working hard but your limbs atrophy. There is limited opportunity to move them enough or fast enough to get any aerobic exercise. The middle of the ocean is also beautiful. Here the color is a deep blue which is at the same time translucent. The water in constant motion displays multiple shades of the blue ranging from jet black blue to white clear blue. The color here is different than the green gray water of the North Atlantic in that there the water is monotone and flat, where here there is visible depth and the endless pallet of bright blue. The movement of the water is constant, there are waves, waves on waves, ripples on the surface of the waves, bubbles from where the boat disturbs the water and where the wind cuts the top from a wave. At night it is dark and the stars are intense, they are still northern hemisphere stars but just not quite in the usual place. There are, because of the dark, many more visible which almost makes finding the few constellations we know more difficult. Yesterday we saw a bird. Which we think (based on our wildlife identification guide) was a Tropicbird, yes that's the real name not just what we might call some unknown bird sighted in a warm place. It was on the same page as the albatross, so I expect we might be seeing one of them soon, or perhaps not. I'm still waiting for the flying fish, there is some disagreement on board if it is ok to eat the ones which land on deck at night. There will probably not be any flying fish until we get to the tropics proper, or about latitude 20 north, which most times if you sailed from the canaries to the Caribbean you would be by now. We are not because we did not take the Normal route. That route has you leaving the canaries, sailing mostly south west about 700 miles to Cape Verde, about 17-20 N and then heading west, eating flying fish for breakfast. But the wind and water has so far made sailing a direct rhumb line course the best option for us. But it has made what should have been (what is called the barefoot route), a trip requiring warm clothes foul weather gear and oatmeal instead of flying fish for breakfast. As I recall, I remember them eating flying fish on Kon Tiki as they sailed across the Pacific. I wrote the note above during my 17:00-21:00 shift, some time during my 01:00-05:00 shift a flying fish flew into the cockpit and landed right next to me but I threw it back into the water because by this time, it was Christmas Day. Merry Christmas and much love to family and friends who we are away from in place but not in mind.