Thursday we sailed into an area of upwelling, where the deep ocean current hits the Nicaragua Bank and brings cool water to the surface. So even though our latitude is still dropping as we press deeper into the tropics, today was refreshingly cool. Spirited sailing Thursday, single reefed on a close reach in a fresh breeze, with constant spray but only the occasional sheet of seawater on deck, One of these boarding waves found its way into the ventilator and rained down on us down below during supper.

We are once again fighting a current, but still making good progress - over six knots. Robin upgraded to the premium satellite weather service that includes ocean current predictions, but that hasn’t been as helpful as one might hope, as the three different current models do not agree with each other, and the downloads take forever. We are barreling along right now despite the current, and normally I would be making optimistic predictions about our arrival in Panama in just a few days, but the wind models all show some version of a calm zone extending 120 miles or so north of Colon, so until we get there we can't be sure of how long the last two degrees of latitude will take.

I am suffering from a relatively mild gout attack - not surprising, since the last time I had gout was on our last long passage in the tropics in 2015. Not sure whether it is dehydration , lack of exercise, or something else that triggers it, but I can still walk, at least. And if you are going to suffer through a gout attack, you might as well be on passage, since you can't walk anywhere anyway and it's easy to elevate your foot on watch by sitting on the low side of the cockpit and putting your foot up on the high side. Robin made me take some ibuprofen today, and that has helped considerably.

Flying fish abound, and one shooting star tonight left a trail of stardust across the sky. We are blessed.