Position 9 57n / 128 42w
All is well.
We just passed the 10th parallel and at the same time found ourselves
1320 miles from land in any direction. This is really the middle of the
ocean! We caught another dorado and are having asian mahi mahi tonight
with our middle of the ocean celebration.
We are supposed to be entering the doldrums now with notorious light
winds and squalls, but we've had a 20 knot breeze off the port quarter
all day and making fine time of over 7 knots good. We hit our highest
boat speed this morning on Anne's watch at 9.84 knots. Now we are trying
to hit 10. It is amazing how the boat gets more stable and quiet the
faster we go. It is odd but welcomed. The convergence area is giving
rise to lots of dramatic clouds. We had an amazing sunset complete with
a double rainbow last night.
The convergence has brought a lot of rain along with the nice breeze
which has cut into the bird watching. We've seen lots of birds in the
past week, but only got serious with the field guide a couple of days
ago. We have positively identified 5 species including 2 storm petrals,
a shearwater, a petral, and a tropicbird. We also spied a red legged
booby, but we aren't counting it since it was before we understood the
proper way to identify these birds. Yes, we get excited about seeing
birds. We haven't seen a ship in 10 days. Even the odd sea turtle or
floating garbage will bring up everyone on deck. Interestingly, we have
not seen a single porpoise since San Francisco. We have seen lots of
flying fish including a few that landed on deck.
We are about 650 miles from where we cross the equator where we'll have
our champaign ready. We are hoping for a landfall at Hiva Oa island in
the Marquesas on the 14th, but this will no doubt be the wrong day.
Bob
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