Today was my birthday, and it was a really nice one. It started out with a cup of coffe (with a splash of Baileys of course). Then John surprised me with a gift! He gave me a Nuku Hiva refrigerator magnet (my favorite type of collectable!), and a necklace with a mantaray carved out of stone from the Marquesas - very beautiful! And totally unexpected! Since we spend just about every waking moment around each other I had no idea where and when he had gotten it. Some how he found time to buy it at a little store in Nuku Hiva while I was checking out the book exchange next door a few days ago. Then I opened my present from my girlfriends (Fran, Linda, Donna and Susan) - a sarong - it is perfect! Thank you Ladies! (Before we left in September, they gave John and I a box of gifts to get us through an entire year - so that we have something to open for all sorts of special occassions each month.) I have had my birthday package pulled out and sitting next to my bed for over a month - I was wondering what was in that package!

Then John baked me a birthday cake. Any guesses? Yes - it is chocolate. But also with a layer of lemon cake, with chocolate/coffee frosting. I will let you know how it is later once we eat it - but the batter was excellent! Then he caught a tuna this afternoon - so that is on the menu for dinner tonight. The weather today has been gorgeous - a 15 knot breeze off our port stern-quarter and we are just scootin along. We will probably shorten sail tonight and slow down quite a bit. We are about 100 miles out from Raroia (our first atoll landing), and at this rate it puts us in there at 4 in the morning - not an ideal time to run the passage into the lagoon. Slack tide is around noon tomorrow, so instead of bobbing around for 8 hours, we will just take it down a notch thru the night and take our time getting there. I couldn't ask for a better day - a perfect birthday to remember!

Lisa