Fifth day out: Day dawned, as yesterday,with the vessel under power. It would end under sail with wind favorably first in the NNW, backing to W. After 48 hours of engine - at last we could hoist sails, set the Monitor self-steering and move powerfully and silently off to the WSW, as Adrienne prepared a chicken breast and mash potato with sour cream dinner.

The day, however, was windless and diesel powered. How did the day go?

I wrote the piece you'll find below, The Dancers. Emailed it to the blog. I like your idea Phil of my name now being Joe Blogs.

Adrienne sorted out our charts, putting away the Mexican ones (probably for good) and putting the South Pacific charts under the chart table.

We have begun a "sked" (radio schedule) with 3 other boats at 1 o'clock local time or 1800 zulu (GMT), and we get to know one another over the radio as we all inch our way to the Marquesas. One boat is called what sounded like 'Yummy Yummy', but it turns out it is called 'Spirit of Nyumi Nyumi', from the Zambesi river, Brian said. And another boat - Syzygy, so many Y's.

Had a cold beer each, with lunch.

Read more of John Grisham's novel The Broker, as Adrienne chuckled and bellylaughed her way through a Stephanie Plum novel, Twelve Sharp. These days I read stuff I was too much of a snob to read before. You take what you can find, at the book swaps. Grisham's good.

Today I repaired a lifeline near the bow that broke on the first day as we brought the big 33Kg Rocna anchor aboard, the heavy chain breaking the lifeline. Using rope, I set up extra lifelines at chest height (the installed ones at 24 inches high are more like trip wires than lifelines).

Deciding to hang around and wait for the forecast wind, I turned off the engine and raised the red-white-and- blue reacher drifter (you can see it in the small photo, right) it gave us 2 knots, but mostly the rolling knocked the wind out of it. I was taking a nap when the real wind arrived - from the cockpit Adrienne was trying to manage the reacher drifter which was doing all the wrong things, and called for help. We got it down as it ballooned and bucked - flying out horizontally, me gathering it dry and undipped as Adrienne lowered the halyard with neat timing. It was time to set mains'l and genny, the real wind was here.

I love sailing.