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Friday, October 22, 2010

Friday, 10/22 (dawn)

Though there may be more motoring ahead if the wind dies we managed to squeak through the ITCZ with only about 12 hours worth. After one (hopefully) last big black cloud covering the sky and raining on us, we've picked up the NE tradewinds. We're broad reaching now (the wind coming more from our side) and taking spray over the bow and into the cockpit again. It's a sharp jerky motion in the bigger seas, but we're moving along fast. We've set a waypoint for the Big Island and, if we can keep up this pace, we could be there by next Thursday or Friday, just in time for Halloween weekend in Hilo. Less than 900 miles to go!

Yesterday I caught a glimpse of what looked like maybe pilot whales. There were puffy spouts and they were much larger than dolphins. They surfed the waves aft of us before disappearing. We're also seeing the very sturdy and graceful shear waters, the little white-rumped petrels, and what I think are tropic birds without their long breeding tail plumes.

Before we left Nila asked me if I do my exercises while on passage. I had to laugh and told her that on a monohull (her boat, Quixotic, is a catamaran) just "being" is plenty of exercise. In addition to constantly bracing for the motion (okay, so maybe it's only isometric exercise), consider that we also climb up and down five steps every 15 minutes over 12 hours in every 24 hour period to scan the horizon outside for ships and weather. That sounds like exercise to me!

In anticipation of our arrival we're planning how to finish up our cabbage, carrots, and onions so that we don't have to waste any by handing them over to Customs. Last year they let us keep our last couple of onions, but other boats we know had theirs taken. So for now it's an onion a day until we can get back to an apple a day!

Linda

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