It has been a glorious sail last night and this morning.  We were ding 12.5-9.5 knots last night on a broad reach.  Hawaii is now less than a 1000 miles away.  Really just like going from Toronto to Kingston and back; 5 times.  We are close toi the 22 degree line of latitude which is our course into Honmolulu.

Food has been electic; pasta with tomato sauce, tuna that is dolphin safe in curry, chicken in curry, tilapia al limon, pancakes (but noone can find the maple syrup).  We must have a ghost on board.  Not onlyis the maple syrup gone, the parmesan cheese is elusive.  But what has really thrown us is that the mount for the outboard motor that Peter Franzen put on in Marina del Rey, which was there 2 days ago, is now gone.  As  Robert noted; fortunately the motor wasn’t mounted on it.  Peter if there is something we said, pls let us know so we can get it back. Last night I had Eric Clapton unplugged again accompanying the waves; quite specials mixing these sounds.  I knew I wasn’t “in Kansas” when the moon came up, because out and down here the crescent of the moon doesn’t start on the right, but is lying down and starts on the bottom. Last night after I went to sleep and Thom came on watch, he saw a light ahead he could not identify. He woke me to get me to verify that the light he saw  was in fact the moon, and not another sea level vessel.  I did and it was; the moon; and we calmed down after finding nothing on the sea in the radar.

A word on our watch system; we think this is a Babelfish original and everyone is free to use it ; pls just credit Babelfish. 

Shifts are 6 hours during the day;6am to noon; noon to 1800.  “Then a  4 hour watch from 1800 to 2200.  Then 2 hour watches from 2200 to 6am.  This keeps the quiet solitary night watches short, gives everyone plenty of sleep, ;and the 4 hour watch stuck in means the system rotates so noone gets stuck with the same watch all the time.  During the day there are people up and helping so it goes by quickly.  This is working for the 4 of us.  Still electrical issues but our friendly roving Najad service man, Alan, is helping out.

Started reading about the next legs; some of the islands have interesting descriptions; in one the most noteworthy meal is a missionary stew where the missionary , whose name I forget, was the stew.  I have to remind them I don’t eat red meat.  In another island near Tahiti, the guide says the population was known to be aggressive and is now mostly female.  I don’t know if the red meat caution applies here as well.  Food is now served so that’s all for now.

Babelfish

Apologies to my high school friends for missing this week’s reunion