Yesterday turned out to be a nice sunny day. Today started out similar with the same grey, but the clouds burned off and it seems to be another sunny day. We could actually use a good hard rain to wash down the boat - our guests (red-footed boobies) increased in numbers and became more brazen in their party area. Jon has worked to clean a good deal of it up today, but a rain wash down would be quite welcome.
Current Position: 01 10N 087 13W
24 hour progress: 128nm, 5.3kts avg SOG, with the last 24 hours all sailing. Current progress for the passage is 916nm with approximately 190nm to go on the great circle route. We have had steady winds of 15kts +/- 5kts. We continue to sail close hauled. Current ETA likely to be the morning of the 25th. As somewhat anticipated, this has been a rather slow passage.
The crew is doing fine. More red-footed boobies joined us yesterday with at least 7 sleeping on the boat last night. I took pictures of 8 on the boat at one time, after sunrise, so perhaps they were all on the boat overnight. They are difficult to count in the moonlight plus they start flying off (and then back on) before sunrise to start eating. Over 48 hours of booby presence has taken its toll on the solar panels, the sail, the deck and the bow. They are still quite entertaining though. This morning a frigate bird tried to land after she had been harassing the boobies for their food. The boobies did not let her stop for a ride or join their party. They are on the boat a lot less this morning so perhaps they will move on today.
Yesterday we were given a small show by some big dolphins. They were launching themselves into the air and doing full body flips. It always makes me think of Sea World, and other, dolphin shows where they claim that they only ask them to do behaviors that they do in the wild. It isn't often when we have seen them do full flips in the air or jump up high, fully out of the water, but when they do I am always surprised enough to think, "Huh, what do you know, I guess those flips through the hoop or up to the mark were a natural behavior after all." We must have gone through an area rich in fish as the dolphins didn't have much interest in the boat and we saw quite a few of them. We also saw a few groups of what we think were whales in the same area. The whales were never very close to us, and they weren't especially big. They were dark and bigger than porpoises with a prominent, though short, dorsal fin. Perhaps pilot whales or minke whales? Later we had dolphins and boobies at the bow for a few minutes. We did finally decide to throw the fishing line back out despite the boobie fest. So far the boobies haven't seemed too interested in the cedar plug, but neither have the fish.
Cribbage tally for passage:
Jon-1, Daxton-0
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