With time on our hands and not much new to comment on our beautiful, ever changing but somewhat predictable scenery, I thought I'd start with profiles of Shearwater's crew. In breaking news however, we did see another ship this morning! 945 feet long, 148 feet wide and 57.4 draft! Heard French being spoken on the VHF. More like an island I'd say, travelling 10+ knots.

I'll beginwith Wade, our chief engineer who spends hours in the engine room barking complaints in a thick Scottish brogue about the status of our dilithium crystals. He makes his home in Poulsbo on Washington's Olympic peninsula and is a retired United 747 pilot, flying for United Airlines for 39 years. He remembers when air travel was more pleasant than it is today! Wade is also a licensed captain and has run tour boats out of SE Alaska for the past 3 summers. He has owned a 32 Grand Banks, a 46 Nordhavn, and presently a 37 Mariner pilot house named Honu (Sea Turtle in Hawaiian ) In addition he has built 4 of his own houses including designing 3 of them. He has been a serious HAM radio buff for 45 years and speaks fluent electronic and electrical. Wade is our SSB and VHF guru and can download current weathermaps at no charge over SSB with the Pactor modem. In a word, Wade is really handy and has great judgement about all things mechanical and otherwise on Shearwater. Almost like having a Robb Scott on board! In addition he is quiet about his competence and always ready to teach or give his opinion on the issue of the day. Wade has a great eye for identifying "irregularities" and is responsible for many improvements in Shearwater's systems. You can only imagine how happy he was wandering through Mong Kok and Aplieu Street, the hardware and electrical and electronics district. He writes a email series called "The Fishwrapper" which he sends friends and family. If you email my regular email address I will forward the 5 volumes he has written on t his trip so far when we get to next port. They are really well written, witty and informative. Wade is a serious card player. Roger and I have been playing cribbage with him but I fear he is disappointed that he can't rally us for a 4 handed game of hearts instead of playing against and schooling his computer hearts program.