We weighed anchor at 10am Monday and bid Chacala adios. After 4 hours of motoring in calm seas a light breeze filled in and we sailed for the rest of the day and through the night. Winds are on the beam and we fly at 8 + knots when they get to 10-12 knots; we'll make about 170nm for this 24 hour run. It will be several more days until we get to the trade winds which will come from behind and be stronger. Two hours on, six off, with a dog watch from 6-8pm during supper when we are all on watch. Salon is set up for sea berths so dining is on deck.

The Pacific is putting on a show for us. Last night we had a spectacular green flash followed by a gorgeous sunset. There is no moon, so the night sky is magical. The milky way, with its enigmatic swirls and tendrils, lights up the south sky as Ursa Major lumbers on her rotation from east to west. Not enough? The phosphorescence has made its debut with sparkling flecks in the bow wave. Night watches are great! Then, to help us appreciate the morning, three dolphins surfed our bow wave; we could have reached over and touched them. (They were pantropical spotted dolphins.)

At risk of tempting the Fates, will repeat the most frequent comment on deck: it doesn't get much better than this. Surprise fairly sails herself, between satellite fed navigation programs and Otto Pilot, who sails to apparent wind faithfully or will change to stay the course - just dial it in. Crew just getting used to the rhythm of watches, with senior members doing a little overtime, smoothing out waves of exuberance/terror among the less experienced night sailors. With only 2550 left to go it's still a fair bet that everyone will get in a solid 4 hours of nighttime shut-eye before we see land again. (One final note about Chacala - it's got to be a contender for home of the world's best $5 prix fixe dinner. With seconds if you want 'em. Ay!)

While we were in San Deigo getting electronic help from Shea Weston he mentioned he could load the AIS (Automatic Identification System, now required on all commercial vessels) and interface it with our navigation software. We said do it, and boy are we glad we did. We sailed through the coastal traffic last night with greatly increased knowledge. Every large commercial vessel out there showed up on the screen, with information on range and bearing between us and it, there course and speed, and time and distance of "closest point of approach" or CPA. There were at least twenty vessels crossing our track, most much too far away to be of concern. But the AIS did identify one as having a CPA of 2.4 miles at about 3:00am. That is close enough for concern, so we kept a careful watch. Having ascertained that it would pass in front of us, Susan contacted them on the radio when we were 7 miles apart. The bridge watch confirmed that they could see us, and that they agreed with our 3 mile pass estimate. He said: "That's very close .keep watching ma'm. I said I would. We did not see him on the radar until he was 15 miles away, only about 20 minutes warning without the AIS. Very cool!