We see a fair number of birds, even hundreds of miles offshore. I am not sure what kind of bird this is, but they fly close to and around us often.

We are in the Variable belt of winds and, true to their name, they are being very variable. Going has been slow for the last few days--wind direction has varied a lot, and wind speed has been 5 to 30 knots. We've been raising and lowering the fore-staysail (the sail with the broken furler) as necessary (hardly ever), and that has been working out well.