We are just passing south of the Wakatobi Islands. Wakatobi is an acronym made up of the first 2 letters of four different islands. And it is HOT today. 99F or about 37C in the cabin today. Fortunately its humid too.

Too hot to type really, but I'll tell you that we solved an important mystery last night. Recently we started noticing big blackish/brownish spots on the hull, mostly under the bridge deck. It started in Banda where we first noticed a couple. Then we noticed more in Ambon, and yesterday we spotted several more, including a few on the outside of each hull. The spots vary in size but look a bit like a small water-balloon hit the boat and left a mark. We had figured it must be oil on the water just getting stuck to the gelcoat somehow. But that seemed an odd explanation since its been flat calm, and despite the last couple of harbors being filthy, the water is generally absolutely gorgeous here. Also, there didn't really seem to be an oily film if when you touch the spots. We took an hour break yesterday and stopped the boat so all could swim and cool off. During our swim we tried to clean off some of the spots--not easy. They do come off but it takes a cleaner like 40 9 or Fantastic, and some elbow grease. A bit depressing since they seem to be accumulating. Well following a scream from Rivers room last night around 9pm we know what is causing the spots--and that we'll likely be stuck getting them for a while. Its squid! The little buggers, or perhaps not so little, are slamming themselves into the hull and leaving big ink spots. We've had lots of squid on board over the last few years. And I mean lots. One moring we counted 45 or so on deck. And we've had a small amount of ink with some of those lying on deck--but we didn't put it together, because this is altogether different. None are on deck, and the inkspots are fairly big. It must be a different squid species. The one that solved it for us thumped into the side of the hull with a loud smack squirting ink into rivers room, on her, and on her ceiling.

...so now we at least know what we are cleaning up....