Yesterday was the picture postcard version of cruising to the tropics. Sunshine, blue sky, towering cumulus clouds on the horizon and 15-18 knots of breeze on the beam. Surprise was reaching along under a single reef and small jib at 8 knots. Crew was working on their tans. But like all picture postcards it was transitory. In the afternoon the wind backed into the NE and piped up to 20 again. The "brisk" trades gave us one last send-off but it too was short lived, happily. Jib has been in and out with the threat of squalls, but so far they have delivered only rain. Boats 600 miles ahead of us report constant squalls all through the ITCZ, so we're still keeping a sharp lookout. A little over 200 miles to the equator! And by the way, we're no longer doing 200 mile days, a circumstance we don't regret.

Surprise now has a fully functioning sauna; anytime we have to close the hatches for seas or rain, it gets very HOT below. Mercifully there are 5 Turbo fans to provide a continual supply of HOT air and lots of cold beer to keep the fluid balance.

We'll hobble the main at the first reef so we can use all three reef points in the main. Being able to get to the third is important because the squalls have been reported to have up to 50 knots. If you look at a photo of the boat, the main comes down almost to the sail numbers at the third reef and we all put on our Pampers.

It's been so much calmer, not to mention sunnier, that for the first time in a week or so the entire crew is clean at the same time as their clothes. Combine smelling good with being well rested and well fed, and we really do start to live up to the advertising hype. We were all a bit worried about the Captain's sanity for a minute there yesterday morning when he soberly informed us as he looked out at the sea "You can tell it's been raining: everything out there's all wet!" It took us a minute to realize that the fair winds had returned the twinkle to his eye. After many days of a lot of weather and not enough sleep, a stoopid joke was just the thing to reduce us all to giggling idiots. You had to be there.

Things looked so good yesterday (before we realized that the sauna had been turned on) that The Admiral got ambitious with dinner plans and gave us a 4 star feast of orange/jicama salad with nicoise olives, green bean casserole with duxelles, (this was NOT your mama's green bean casserole!) and mustard glazed chicken breasts. Presentation was impeccable, but timing was a little dubious with the first fat raindrops landing on deck at the same time dinner plates were handed up. While some scampered below to enjoy the feast, the Admiral had had enough of the sauna, and along with junior crew, enjoyed dinner under the protection of the bimini. We all relished another evening of moonlight and relatively calm weather, with only a couple of squalls to keep it interesting. Looks like more of the same today, and there are no complaints.