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Since the wind filled in yesterday we have been close hauled with a grey sky delivering us frequent rain. My skin and clothes now are nicely rainwater rinsed and the grey sky is a nice change from the constant sun of the Caribbean. We knew this would be a wet, upwind passage and the planet has delivered. Upwind means the wind is blowing towards you from the place you want to go. (ailboats cannot sail straight into the wind so we zip zag to get upwind. Close to the wind in the term and we try to point the boat within 45 degrees. This is why we are steering south toward the mainland of South American instead of straight towards the Galapagos. Zig #1. Sailing close hauled is a marvel as the boat moves almost impossibly close to the wind. Heeling or tilting the boat on its side is part of sailing upwind. Offshore the joy of heeling with the rail (edge of the boat) in the water is muted by the challenge of moving around, cooking, sleeping and all those other life essentials on an angle of 15-25 degrees.

It usually takes several days to get into the routine so sleep is short making the challenging close hauled sailing and rain wearing. Stress release included throwing pillows that had fallen, clashing pots and more positively making chocolate chip cookies. The AIS provided great entertainment today. The AIS is the onboard system where we can see close by ships. SHips broadcast their course and speed along with lots of other useful information â€�" where they are headed how big the are if they are turning. Anyone can see the global traffic with the Marine traffic website or ap I use to identify ships passing my office on the Hudson. Since we are getting the information over an antenna atop the solar panels the data from ships first is limited so little triangles pop up on the screen. No Name just an identifying number and position. Slowly as the ships get closer the icon changes depending what kind of ship they are. Cargo ships show up as a little pill shape , tanker have a pill with a tower signal and sailboats have an arcuate shape and a sail in the middle. Since leaving NY we have not seen a single sailboat sailing. This grey morning a triangle shape appeared moving way slow to be a cargo ship. The ships move 13-22 knots while sailboat move 0-7 knots. Amid the busy north south cargo ship traffic the slow moving triangle was a surprise. Then a call came over the radio. “Mabel Rose Mabel Rose this is the Freydis” in a British commonwealth accent. I respond and the commonwealth accent say shift to another channel. They cannot hear me although I gather they are talking about shaking out their reef. WE had been going faster. Oh no , I think, if they shake out their reef we will be slower. How can I feel peer pressure to shake out the reef in the middle of the ocean.? Ah dating. I shake out the reef and we keep on moving together. With no other information except and accent and the speed, the AIS tinder dating ap allows me to invent boats and crew for the little green triangle named Freydis. We play tag with the triangle all day seeing just a white sail on the horizon. Freydis very fast… it is a catermaran having trouble going to windward? If it a big heavy boat that needs even more wind that we have? Is it going slow to give an easier ride for a green crew? By early afternoon the green triangle turns into a sailboat icon â€�" more information on the dating ap. She is really big, long 46' to our 38'. And not to fat (her beam is the nautical term). She is 16' wide compared to out 11'. She is a monohull! By afternoon tea time we almost hit her. This time she can hear us on the radio. An austrailian couple on their way to the Galapagos on a Swedish boat. They are traveling with a German couple on an identical Swedish boat (Malo). They ask us to join their daily checkins. Not sure it will work but AIS the tinder of the high seas has connected us up.

The day ends well. Dinner stays on the table and we even brave a little wind that also stays in the cups. As the petrels predicted the plankton rose and filled the seas with glowing bits. other Birds chase, first mistaken for oncoming ships, chase us like airborne ghosts as we stir the ocean and deliver dinner for them.

Bird note #1: The swooping petrels are rare in the middle of the day, a pair mid afternoon and by dusk they begin to show in flocks looking for the rising plankton. Think they are the Band Rumped Storm Petrel nesting in the Galapagos and the Azores.

Bird note #2: Think we have been chased by a Tropical tern. Bigger than the terns we are used to.