Waves have a nasty habit of convincing you all is well then act just like a little kid who sneaks up behind you with the garden hose soaks you for a second then runs away laughing joyously. I had hoped to capture that playfulness of waves this morning at dawn. The image from the other morning of the lacey grey wave with dangling cloud and the orange sun is on my mind. I have tried to capture waves digitally before spending much of a passage from New York to the Azores leaning over the side camera in hand. My wave obsession is not new. The idea of a sunrise or maybe sunset wave is new. While there are waves at dawn the sunrise is obscured by grey clouds. I am worried this might be my last chance to catch long Pacific swells. We are approaching the Tuamotos. We are sailing into the wind shadow or lee of the islands between us and the open Pacific. There is a fetch for the waves but it is only 25 miles not 2500 miles. A lot less time for the wind to pump energy into the ocean.

I wore my foul weather gear on the morning watch but it was totally dry. I was sure the wind shadow would mean no splashes and wore no rain gear. Being in a wave mood I was even humming the song Karl wrote about the setting to sea in our little green boat (the Frog) with our kitten. I was just getting my bearings when a wave decided to drench me. The words I used were not the light song Karl wrote appropriate for children. Just to show me how much fun they were having, a wave managed to splash me during my nap through a porthole that rarely sees spray.

We passed a Japanese tuna boat today, named Hayuyomaru #58, the first traffic since leaving Taoihe. Only 150 feet in length and a long way from home it must be part of a factory operation where smaller boats deliver their catch to a larger vessel that returns home while the others continue to fish. Imagine the fate of a tuna caught by Hayuyomaru #58 from chasing flying fish in the South Pacific to thousands of miles later lying frozen stiff on the floor of the Toyko fish market ready for a rapidfire auction. So different from tuna at the pier, dressed by the fisherman, weighed on a kitchen scale and dropped into a 2 gallon plastic bag for the waiting customers. In the Marquesas 12 hours and 12 miles from being hooked to being served.

It was a day full of squalls. With just the jib up, she handles the 30 know gusts well. We are making very good time. At home we plan on 100 miles a day but here with very reliable wind we are often making 150 nautical miles in a day. Imagine a trip where you planned on the 65mph speed limit but found there was no reason not to travel at 100 mph. Looks like there will not be time to make an arrival cake given we just polished off the halfway there cake for tea. The waves have settled down but with the squalls the wind is being impish making the teapot fly. Good thing it is metal. As the strong minded waves in Karl's song says, “If you get wet don't blame me.”