HI to MX Day 16

We've been motoring off and on, in between some nice light air sailing off the wind. I hate to jinx it, but this is really nice! Yesterday morning we got enough of a light but steady rain to wash most of the salt off the boat. It cleared before Noon and I got out there with a rag to wipe the rest of it off before it dried. This makes life much more pleasant for John when he has to go forward for sail handling duties. Some days are still mostly cloudy or have that hazy winter sunshine, but today has been very nice with lots of warm sun. In fact it was so nice and calm (motoring) that John decided we should take showers! He got the Honda generator out to run the water heater, and emptied the shower stall of all the junk we had stored there (including two jerry jugs of water which he put in the tank). Normally our head, which is up in the bow of the boat, is probably the roughest place to be. It's the place where I'm most likely to crash into things because it's difficult to brace myself anywhere. But today it was perfect and we are very happy to be really clean again.

Ziggy is happy whenever we shut the motor off to sail. He's also enjoying the freedom to roam the decks outside since it's calm enough for him to go forward during the daytime. He'd like to do it at night as well, but we don't let him out after dark.

John got the regulator working at 100% again! He took it out of the engine compartment and carefully washed it with fresh water and let it dry all day. Then checking it over found a couple of broken wires which he soldered back in place. He says this would have been impossible had it not been calm as the wires are very small and soldering them would be hard enough without having the boat roll back and forth. He re-installed it and now it charges fully just like it used to. It's a good thing, because while he was removing it for cleaning he dropped the light bulbs he was using to get the thing working and one of them broke. That's 2 out of 3 broken, we're down to our last one. Hopefully we won't have to resort to the light bulbs again for a while.

We're counting the miles until we can make that right hand turn!

{GMST}31|17|N|134|36|W|Hawaii to Mexico Day 16|Day 16{GEND}