We weighed anchor yesterday (Monday, 02APR) at 1200 local time (1800 utc) after one last food shopping run into town in the morning. After sailing west on a close reach for a few hours (7+kn over ground in 12kn of wind with a big push from the current...) we eventually had to tack to get clear of the islands and are now close reaching on a starboard tack - actually going SSE (the Marquesas are WSW...). No complaints though - we got enough wind to sail at 5.5 kn on pretty flat seas and hope to tack back to go west once we reach 2S in a few hours.

Wigwam, our anchor neighbors from Cristobal, left earlier yesterday morning, bound for Easter Island. Rhapsody, with James and Matthew aboard, left a few hours ahead of us. We had brief VHF contact with both during the afternoon and plan to re-connect on SSB today. There are now two little SSB nets that have emerged over the past days for boatois from the Galapagos to the Marquesas: At 1600 on 8143 kHz utc the "POST Net" (named after an unanimous vote today as "Pacific Ocean Sailing Tribe Net") which currently connects 5-6 English speaking vessels. At 1800 utc the DACH-Net (German speaking vessels) meets on 8137 kHz. There are probably many more, including the well established Pacific Seafarers' Net on which we heard John on Arctic Tern III on Sunday evening (he had left from Mexico a couple of weeks ago, also bound for the Marquesas). It's a nice way to break up the day and reassuring to stay in touch with others out there.

We were getting out the warm jackets when the temperature dropped to a freezing 26°C (about 80F) in the rain yesterday afternoon. How will we ever be able to move back to the "temperate latitudes" some day... In any case: still about 3000nm to go, all is well aboard, stay tuned...