The past 24 hours have been pretty good to us. God does answer prayer! At 11:30 last night we were able to shut down the engine and sail close hauled under a full main and jib. What made this event so remarkable is that we didn't have to turn on the motor until this morning, and then it was for only a couple of h ours at a time. Heretofore whenever we have cut the engine to try to sail we are back into the motorsail mode within a half hour it seems.

But all last night and again today we have been sailing. The wind veered around a bit today towards the NW and NNW, so we have cracked the sails off a bit and are able to close reach. That is big because our jib is really not cut for sailing close to the wind. But on a close reach we are able to run between 4 and 6k in 10-12k of breeze.

Even more importantly, not running the engine extends are fuel supply to get us closer to those beautiful tradewinds. If we can just get a couple more days of th is we might be able to make it all the way to the tradewinds. Once in the trades we should have no more problem with wind. (We'll have a different set of problems then!)

We got rid of our hitchhikers and closed the hotel down. They were crapping all over the place and making a mess of things. They were probably part of a rock group!!

Will reports a potential hurricane off of Acapulco, so we will keep an eye to see of that develops into anything real. (Gulp!) We have invoked "the 3 knot rule". If we get below 3k through the water then we turn on the engine. We need to run a fine balance between getting the heck out of the way of any bad weather, getting to the trades in a timely fashion, and conserving our fuel. So far today has been quiet (i.e. no motor). Let's hope we keep that going!