We are halfway there. Karl cooked a solar halfway there chocolate cake using a recipe that Beryl had sent us before she headed off to Belgium. It was from that beautifully illustrated “Salt Acid Fat Sweet” cookbook. When I baked this cake over the winter I thought --- this is a prefect cake for a passage. Really simple and uses oil even though I am a huge fan of butter sometimes oil is just simpler. The moist solar cake was perfect with ice tea.

Right now, a gentle rain is falling on the deck as we have passed our first squall line. I was studying the clouds when a clear dark line appeared in front of us stretching from side to side like a grey banner in the sky. The radar showed rain 24 miles off to the east and 9 miles off to the west. We slipped under the dark banner with no gusts and now have a 90-degree wind shift and rain. Time to change direction (tack) as heading to the Yucatan Peninsula not in our plans. We may have just lost our lovely wind that kept us moving through the water at 7-8 knots sine we rounded Jamaica.

A six-day passage is short. You barely have time to decompress from the last port and before getting ready for the next. The list of things we did not get to in Jamaica become dreams for a future visit �" live reggae music and finding the abandoned railway tunnel where there are pillow basalts in the wall. Pillow basalts are the rock that make up much of the seafloor before it gets buried in the oceanic snow. Basalt is the name of the rock and the pillows happen when lava meets the sea water. This would be a great Marie adventure. Well music and cool racks are on to future to do list.

This morning a big flying fish came straight at the boat at face level then veered away as it saw the sail. Such an acrobatic aeronaut. One had landed on deck and in my effort to limit some of the bad gout foods I did not serve it for breakfast. Instead I took pictures of it especially its big mouth, white tongue and beautiful wings. My finger fared much better when I stuck it into the fish's mouth than with the barracuda. Hoped to find plankton or something in the stomach but just yellow ooze. Was not up to getting out the microscope so I returned the fish to Neptune.

Karl's gout has reminded us how hypochondriac you can get on a passage. We were really careful with masks but every scratch in our throats we worry covid??? Would we be allowed into Panama? Could we just get the boat to mostly take care herself if we were ill? We have been here before in terms of worrying about exposure in port. When we left Dakar, I got worried about Ebola. It was raging in Guinea and we had spent time with Guinean fisherman. Figured no one would help a pair of Americans on a sailboat with Ebola. That sleep deprived nightmare evaporated as we passed headed west. Here's hoping we are healthy and stay healthy in Panama �" the covid rates are very high.

Looking ahead we are starting to look towards the details of Panama and Galapagos. Karl has been arranging and agent in both places but there is more homework to do.

Dinner was at Chez Karl. Tonight in the cockpit again under a light. The conditions have eased enough to use the table again although only half so we have a barrier to keep the food from flying. Crescent moon provides silver light on the water.