I slept through most of our Gulf Stream crossing, from 0400 to 1000, though Robin informs me that the seas calmed down once we crossed the north wall into the stream itself. Based on what I saw this morning, “calm” still meant five to eight foot seas, they just stopped being the boat-slappers of last night.

But oh what a blue world I awoke to! It's called blue water sailing for a reason - the Gulf Stream is the fence line of a different world - tropical blue waters just a day and a half from New York! We saw our first whales (a pod of pilots) and dolphins (spotted) this morning. The dolphins swam with us for fifteen minutes. By the end of the day, we were seeing flying fish as well.

And what a sparkling day of sailing it has been - reaching all day in the steady caress of a force 4 westerly, clear weather with an unlimited horizon. I had no business counting on weather this good for heading south from NYC on May 15 - the exact date I was telling people a year ago would be our departure date. It is a huge relief to have the Gulf Stresm crossing behind us already - the possibility of getting caught out in a Spring nor’easter in the Gulf Stream scares me more than a hurricane. That possibility is why I counted this first passage as one of the four most intimidating passages of the voyage (the others are Fiji to NZ, crossing to Tasmania, and rounding Cape Good Hope).

But now on the midnight watch we are sliding South on a truly gentle moon sparkled sea, slipping out of the nor'easter zone with no storms in sight. Just that potential hurricane in the Gulf the long range model insists on. But that should not affect us, I hope.