Crossing the Line

Early this morning we crossed the equator. It was about 5am, the nearly full moon had just set and the sky was filled with bright stars not quite familiar. The milky way in the southern sky was prominently running in the wrong direction, or I should say different direction than what I'm used to. We looked for Mark Twain's "blue ribbon stretched across the ocean" but it must have been too dark. I didn't get to Kodak it. We were visited by a representational King Neptune complete with toga and seashell studded crown. We then opened that vintage port from 1994 that we bought in Brooklyn and have been saving for a very special occasion. After first giving an offering to the sea, we all had a drink. River's sip was followed by a " "yuck" and "that burns". Stephen's only comment was, "Strange.". We also offered up some freshly baked chocolate chip snickers cookies that Rivers and I mixed up earlier in the day and that I baked during my 12-4am watch. We were then declared greenhorns no longer but true deep water sailors. That was followed up with cheering and silly dancing. Today I think we'll get our sea water dunk, it was too chilly last night.

Starting off on the Pacific

We left Panama two days ago and are heading to the Galapagos Islands. Our first sailing experience on the Pacific has been peaceful. Light winds, glassine seas, little swell have been our conditions so far. Unfortunately, we have been unable to sail much and have had to keep our motors running. We'll see how long our fuel holds out. The calm seas have been great for mammal watching. We have seen many pods of various dolphins from a distance. Their antics have kept us entertained with their high jumps into the air. I've never seen dolphins in the Atlantic jump like that, but the Atlantic dolphins would often play in our bow wake but these guys have kept their distance. We think we saw some whales flapping their fins in the air but it was too far away to be sure.

Today we had chicken curry using the curry paste I just bought. Yum. I think we'll have curry roti for lunch.

There is a bird flying around me. He's very tired and desperately wants to land on the boat but won't for some reason. Poor little guy.