Saturday March 31 �- Day 7 at sea

Here we are at the end of week one at sea. Wind is light again, only about 6kts and getting lighter as the day moves on. It is supposed to be below 3 kts later this evening so we will probably be motoring for a bit overnight and tomorrow. All things given though, we have not been motoring too much at all. If we are able to sail the boat at 3.5 to 4 kts our thinking is why motor (slowly) at 4.5 and burn fuel? We are probably about 3 days away from the trades settling in south of the Galapagos. We are just about 100 miles NE of the closest Island in the chain, which I did not realize, spans over a hundred miles across and the largest Island is about 80 miles long. We are starting to see lots of AIS targets as we approach the islands and I can see that there are at least 4 AIS repeater stations showing up. Looks like a busy place! That said then, you should be able to see us on AIS now and for the next couple of days I think. The last 2 days we have done about 120 miles per day. Pretty slow compared what we are used to but better than the ~80 miles days we had mid-week. Hope to get up to 15 mile days in the trades. We saw our first boat since the Tuna boat 3 days ago today. It passed about 7 miles behind us heading for Peru. And it has gotten cold! Well, kind of. We passed through the ITCZ (Intra Tropical Convergence Zone) early yesterday. Lots of clouds and showers but all of the rain missed us. Funky wind changes but nothing bad. When we popped out (of the ITCZ) the water temperature had dropped from 31C to 26 and is now down to 24C! The air is noticeable cooler and drier. In fact, the cabin is only 81 F (27C) right now is stead of 91! It is 3 in the afternoon writing this! Last night we were breaking out blankets�....really. So here we are, less than 100 miles from the Equator and it felt chilly at night. Quite nice actually, air is clear and the seas are fairly flat. Late yesterday afternoon Shawnda notice large tuna jumping frantically off our starboard quarter about ¼ mile away. Large as in 4 �- 6 foot variety. I looked over and saw what I thought were Dolphin fins in a group near the tuna. The tuna were frantic and jumping completely out of the water and twisting and tumbling at the same time. In retrospect, I realized that �"fins�" that I saw were not Dolphins but perhaps Orcas? Will never know for sure but the fins were in a group and pretty big. I don�'t think Dolphins eat tuna that big. Maybe sharks but I don�'t think the fins were a shark�'s fin. The water was crazy with all the commotion over there though. Things on board are going well. We had to change a line on the retractable bow sprit pole today. That involved taking the sail down on deck, retracting the pole and bringing it on deck. All went well. I found it broken this morning after going forward to see what Gertrude and Hecliff left on board. (Anyone remember Red Skelton show?) Two sea gulls spent the night on the bow sprit. And, Happy Easter from Laurie, Bob and Shawnda on Hedonism!