It's Friday. We had a lovely hors d'oeuvres course tonight, and wine remaining from our birthday meal. We watched the red sun disappear into a distant Pacific someplace, flashing green as it finally sank. Lovely!

We gathered our shower gear, jumped into the dinghy and motored to the marina. Small events like that can make me juxtapose my normal life and this cruising life. Here we are, motoring into a marina in French Polynesia at night, with sailboats from all parts of the world around us. It can be surreal. We hear snippets of conversation in English (rare), French (lots of French), some Polynesian, Spanish, Danish, Swedish, German (a fair amount), and some Italian.

After I showered, and again, never dismiss the comfort provided by a warm shower, I walked the docks and awaited Conni. It was dark, of course, although the area was fairly well lit by security lights. I could hear a small group of SunSail/Moorings staff as they enjoyed the Friday evening together. Polynesian music was softly playing and the laughter and chatter of happy people broke out occasionally. They spoke Polynesian, so I could make out nothing of what they said, but the laughter was great, males and females together. It was a sound like many Friday nights that I've spent with friends after work.

The air was neither warm nor cool: it was "soft", for lack of a better descriptor. Although it was very warm today, it had cooled significantly. We had been in once today, already, to ensure that we would be allowed to stay another night. We took that opportunity to refill our 5-gallon water jug, after we had emptied it into our port tank. We refilled the jug and will just store that one.

We've got to go ashore once more tomorrow to pay our mooring fees, so I'll get a few photos of Wings at her mooring.

The blog title, of course, is a stanza from the Crosby, Still, Nash and Young song, Southern Cross. Corny, yes, but it was our "theme song" 'for our journey across the Pacific on our first big crossing: 23-1/2 days. Tonight, as we motored home, we both noticed and mentioned seeing the Southern Cross above Wings.

In reading this, I see that it's a bit rambling, worse than usual, but it's part of our life here: to recognize the unique and privileged life that we have, to appreciate it, and be grateful.