Pictures never seem to capture the open ocean since they are static and reduce an environment in motion to a static representation. But, here's a glimpse of the ocean today -- different from yesterday's pictures and yet the same.

The GRIBs were right, we lost our wind after midnight last night and have been motoring since about 0300. There's still a long period swell of about a meter to a meter and a half running, but the seas are quite tolerable and the sky is blue with high patchy clouds.

No planes or ships and only a few flying fish and some birds. Tom chased a couple off of the solar panels yesterday afternoon. Fortunately, they didn't leave any gifts.

Peppered beef chow mein (cabbage, green peppers, and onions) for dinner last night. Lamb frankfurters for lunch today.

Finished _The Man From Beijing_ by Henning Mankell. Two quotes worth passing along:

201: "She had started to sense it during her morning walk through the streets -- a feeling of listlessness that she couldn't quite pin down Surrounded by people, or alone in this anonymous hotel in the gigantic city, she felt her identity starting to fade away. Who would miss her if she got lost? Who would even notice that she existed? // She had had a similar experience previously, when she was very young Suddenly ceasing to exist, losing her grip on her identity."

229: "What did she still have left that she really wanted to experience? É [they] had often talked about visiting various islands. The only ones they had been to so far were Iceland and Crete One of the dream journeys was to Galapagos, another to Pitcairn Island, where the blood from the mutineers on the Bounty was still flowing through the veins of the inhabitants. Learn a few more languages? Or at least improve her French, a language she had once spoken quite well."

And one quote from _Trackers_ by Deon Meyer: 1: ""... some days leave no tracks. They pass as though they never existed, immediately forgotten in the haze of my routine. Other days' tracks are visible for a week or so, until the winds of memory cover them in the pale sand of new experiences."