With not much wind to fill our sails, we sort of moseyed along today. One of the weather forecasting tools we use, called GRIB files, indicate the predicted wind strength and direction as arrows overlaid on a map of the area you're interested in. We receive a few days' worth of GRIBs every morning over the SSB radio, and use them to help us plan our travels. For instance, we timed our departure from the La Paz area to coincide with a few days of steady wind from the north, that should push us gently and continuously toward the Banderas Bay area of the mainland.

But this morning, when we downloaded the GRIBs for the next couple of days, they indicated that the steady breezes that were originally predicted had been superseded by a random collection of light and variable wisps. And that, in fact, is what we got today.

While really light winds aren't particularly conducive to getting somewhere fast by sailboat, the flat seas that generally accompany this weather make a beautiful, wide vista, perfect for spotting any sort of wildlife or other floating things. As we ghosted along, at 1-2 knots, we saw sea lions - more than fifty miles out to sea, I didn't know they lived so far from land - lolling around on the surface of the water, and the brown mounds of sea turtles, also floating by.

I also like to spend time gazing down into the clear blue depths of the water, to see who might be swimming there. Today I didn't see anything with a backbone, but I did see a lot of cool jelly-critters of many different shapes and sizes.

But the coolest thing we saw today appeared as we were having lunch in the cockpit. Hearing a commotion in the water nearby, we looked over just in time to see a six-foot-long shark shoot straight up out of the water, head first. While Eric and I were still thinking, "What the...?" a bunch of small dorsal fins appeared in the area. It looked like a pod of small dolphins had successfully employed the "belly-punch shark deterrent" on this guy. The dolphins then swam calmly away to continue their business.

Fortunately, during the night, though only 2-6 knots, the wind decided on a direction and became more steady, and we were able to sail throughout the night. This was good for both the on-watch person, who didn't have to do much tweaking or listen to a motor, and for the off-watch person, who had a nice, quiet sleeping environment.

Both Eric and I heard whales breathing off in the darkness during our watches, but they didn't come very close. The night was so quiet that Eric was even able to distinguish the different breathing sounds of three whales in a group.

As the sun came up Monday morning, we were sailing merrily along, roughly out in the middle of the Sea of Cortez, southeast of the Baja Peninsula. The GPS coordinates with this entry give our 7 am position.