March 15: Day 3

We heard on the radio that the weather is coming our way so today I did our laundry while the weather was fair and there is sun with smooth seas. We are still in this lovely oasis of flat calm seas but the wind is dying. We are cutting through the ocean at a steady clip and the boat feels motionless below us. While the physical effort of the laundry was a welcome change from the lethargy of reading and watching the horizon it was also a reminder that anything worn will have to be washed by hand. I have traded my t-shirts for sunscreen.

We have been truly blessed by this clam but steady weather. If we keep this up we could arrive in the marquesas in 15 days. We found 6 squid on the deck this morning, how did they get up here and to what end? It is a mystery to me why a creature whos food is in the water would leave that safety for any reason.Their little boddies were baked onto the deck by the sun, surrounded in a stain of ink: their final defence in a world they do not understand. Had some chicken salad sandwhiches and the taste of the frige had made it through tupperwhere and a ziplock bag combined, I can’t belive that food protected by two barriers of plastic is not impervious to this nasty paint smell. We had a few bites and threw the rest overboard.

The sightings of birdlife are more and more rare and I thought that we had left them behind but at 3PM two boobies swooped over the horizon and followed us for hours. They would circle, careen off to the side, dive in the waves and emerge for another run. I am not sure what comfort we provide: they land and rest on the ocean so it is obvious that they do not need a perch. Maybe it is only curiosity that holds them. Do they wonder, like me, what are you doing out here? It seems I could watch them forever, their flight is so infused with energy and struggle as they beat their wings to greater and greater heights and then swoop down to glide along the surface of the water and then beat their wings furiously to circle Fearless again and again. They seem to embody the ideal of enjoyment in life. They just better not crap on my laundry. The wind died down tonight and kept roaming from West to East, making it hard to keep the sails full and not banging about but I was still able to keep us on course. The water is so blue out here.