Been sailing all night, but early this morning the wind dropped. Need to charge the batteries, after usage of navigation light, radar, GPS/course/speed display, and the autopilot, and now no wind - so engine comes on. Ran the watermaker. Motoring for about 4 hours, while I set up the Monitor wind-vane self-steering. If you are curious about wind-vanes, go to the Monitor site, they are a great instrument.

Now sailing again, light breeze, with the Monitor steering (saving amps!) Checked in on the radio with the Pacific Seafarer's Net - and, by the way, you can go online to www.pacsea.org where you should find our position reported daily.

Around midnight, no wind. Stripped all sail off, and decided to conserve fuel on this 3,000 mile passage. Rolling badly side on to the swell, we stood watch or slept. I was awakened by Adrienne who could not make out if this ship was heading straight for us, because there was no AIS signal coming from it (AIS is sent from every ship by law, with data on course, speed, vessel name etc.) and it didn't show up on the radar. Plus, we could see red and green lights, a bad sign! I tried to contact the ship on channel 16 VHF, but they did not answer; so we took evasive action, starting the engine and getting out of its way. Funny thing - couldn't tell which way the ship was heading and it was only a mile away and getting closer - so we were dodging this way then that way, like a comedy movie. Eventually we could see their heading and they slowly went away ...

Rolling rolling rolling (to the tune of "Rawhide") ...