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Saturday, October 16, 2010

Saturday, 10/16

Since crossing the equator (our sixth, by the way!) we've continued to see some interesting temperature trends. We reached a new low of 74.7 before dawn today and it's been climbing steadily ever since. This afternoon the latest reading is up to 78.6 degrees. We're also noticing that even though we have a good wind (enough to heel us over), we're only making 4 kts or less. The combination of these things tells us that we must have reached the Equatorial Current which is west bound and is slowing us down as we sail mostly N or NE. We hope to have broken free of this obstacle by the time we reach 5 degrees north in a few more days.

Ziggy is on a strict "catch and release" program with regard to flying fish landing on the side decks at night. It's been calm enough that we're letting him get the fish himself. Although "letting" isn't really accurate since he's usually out the door and gone before we even realize there's a fish on deck. We grab a paper towel and wait for him to return to the cockpit where we wrap one end of the fish (which he conveniently holds by the middle) with the paper towel and yank it out of his mouth, throwing the whole mess overboard. What a stinky mess. I find fish scales in the oddest places because they blow or get tracked down below. Last night he caught a record six fish and we managed to keep him from eating any of them.

We on the other hand have been enjoying fish meals almost every day. Yesterday John made two nice loaves of bread, our first since leaving Tahaa. The morning of our departure we were on a mooring buoy at the Taravana Yacht Club. At dinner the night before I had thought to ask about the hours of the nearby bakery. So at 6:00 that Monday morning I took the dinghy in to the club dock and walked a couple of blocks for a last supply of fresh baguettes. Today we had mahi mahi sandwiches with John's fresh bread.

Today we also came within about 15 miles of one of the other boats headed for Hawaii. Sea Flyer departed on 10/7 from Tikihau in the Tuamotus, and we've been in touch with them daily on the morning radio net. It would have been a great photo op, but alas, even with GPS it's like looking for a needle in a hay stack and we never got a visual on them.

Soggy Paws emailed us that in addition to the Yotreps position reports on Pangolin, we are also being tracked at this site:

http://shiptrak.org/?callsign=KE6HUA&filter=30

Since we haven't seen it ourselves we don't know how it differs from Yotreps, but maybe it will give you a different view of things.

It's another clear blue day and we're sailing well on the wind vane, enjoying the ride and sleeping well.

Linda