......
The booby condo has now been occupied continuously for more than a day. I'm thinking about becoming a guano wholesailor (haha) when we reach French Polynesia.
We're shooting for a way point about 50nm off the SE tip of the Galapagos at which time we'll finally be able to change course westward by 45 degrees and head straight for the Marquesas....3000nm away. It might still look like we haven't scratched the surface of this passage, but I know it'll feel great to be out of the calms with winds predictable (mostly) in speed and direction! Although I must say that our current winds have been very consistent in the last 24 hrs, although we're kind of slugging to windward... but in a gently way. Our contrary current is also trying to go away, but is having a harder time trying to help.
Last night we came close to a @!xx?!!@$ fishing boat that went one way then the other, crossing our path less than half a mile away. The guy didn't have his AIS on (required for commercial vessels), didn't answer repeated calls on the VHF and he was towing something huge because there was a light flashing far from his stern. At first I thought it was a tug boat, but after his seemingly erratic course I gathered that he must have been on a trawling pattern. Then all of a sudden he stopped, turned off his nav lights, and little lights came off the mother ship and started moving around between the ship and the flashing light!! Dories maybe?? Quite strange! Eventually we left them behind without understanding what was going on. Nat though aliens!

It's still really hot and humid but bearable in the saloon because of the breeze coming in.

Yesterday I took out the crate with the potatoes in because of a suspicious increase in the number of flies and....oh my!.... the bottom of that crate and the shelf on which it was a sight to behold: primordial ooze with a high concentration of flies in all stages of development: from larvae to maggots to full fledge flying bombers. We have fewer potatoes now but they got all scrubbed with sea water and every thing is clean and ship shape. Now we just have to kill the adult flies one by one with the fly swatter: a pleasure!