Looks like my lucky mother's day at sea won't include the equator crossing after all, since we've not had much wind today and all bets are off. We estimated 4pm, 5pm, 7pm and will actually cross around 1am or 2am. Oh well. It's the first time Noortje's ever crossed, so she wants to celebrate regardless.

We had a great breakfast this morning, cinnamon raisin french toast with real maple syrup and boy was it good! As soon as we finished we all heard a noise and turned to see what it was and it was a helicopter! The purse seiners use helicopters as their spotters, flying over the water looking for birds which indicate fish below. So they came straight at us and it was very strange, so we all got outside with our tethers and they circled us several times and hovered just aft of us and we kept waving and shrieking and clapping...very exciting! They motioned talking on a phone so I signaled back 1 finger and 6 fingers for channel 16. Allen talked to them and the pilot was an American, on the ocean for the last 6 months and heading home to Utah soon. Noortje took a video and some awesome pix.

The boys and Noortje worked on a secret Mother's Day gift, a picture frame that they colored and wrote on, with a picture that she took last week sailing to Eneko, of the whole family on deck - dogs included, with all the sails up. She also printed up a pack of other pictures as a gift. Very nice!

So, time for bed, and I still have to dig out the party wigs for the crossing party...