Days at sea completed: 2

Distance sailed in the last 24 hours (nm): 96 Distance sailed total (nm): 236 Distance to go until French Polynesia, as the crow flies (nm): 2477

Wind Speed & Direction (knots): NW 6-17 Sea Condition (ft): NW 3-6

--- See the map on our blog for our current location---

We've had a lot less wind overall this last day (measured noon to noon). In fact, all yesterday afternoon, for about 7 hours we sat with no wind at all and rolled around on the glass swells. No fun and hard on the sails. Luckily, the wind came up in the evening and held all night, even though it was lighter than we would have liked.

This morning, up to a few minutes ago, we were enjoying an awesome reach with the boat speed consistently over 8 knots. Even better, that other boat "Impulsive" that I mentioned yesterday is still in sight, giving me something to meause our performance against.

It's not all plain sailing though. There are some funny moments. Yesterday, we proved that you really can have too many boobies on a boat :)

Just as it was getting dark, a couple of boobies (large sea birds a bit like seagulls) decided that they wanted to land on our bow pulpit. They can crap prodigiously so I was having no part of that. I ran up to the bow to chase the one off that had landed, but he didn't have much fear and refused to take off. I had to pretty much push him off before he would take off. Then, as soon as I turned by back, he would land again. We repeated this great game over and over as his calls attracted his friends. Soon, I had seven boobies landing on the boat. I was pretty tempted to get to gaff and gut one of them as a message to the others, but I thought that would be a very bad omen.

Instead, I ended up staying at the bow for quite a while chasing and pushing them away as they tried to land. One even landed on the top of the mast, luckily not damaging our wind instruments.

It thought my efforts were going to be futile, but as soon as it got dark, they dissappeared. I guess they were looking for some overnight lodgings. Sorry, not on this boat! They are water birds, of course, but I guess they didn't want to get their feet wet.