Position: 17 degrees, 33 minutes North; 108 degrees, 52 minutes West Hopefully, anyway. This morning the wind backed as did t he seas. Both are now coming from the WNW, so we’re now reaching instead of sailing close hauled. We’re much more comfortable as we’re not slamming into the waves. The wind has been lighter today (looks like we only made 109 miles), but we’re hoping as we get further out it will strengthen soon and back some more so we’ll be going “downhill”.

Ann found a flying fish on board this morning and I found a couple squid all of which were no doubt evading predators just to find themselves in a more precarious position on board Charisma.

Booby havoc ensued this afternoon when a Booby tried to land on the wind vane. We didn’t personally see the disaster, but they have been “eyeing” the masthead for some time now. The wind vane is now bent and useless and there is some bird poop on the deck. I’ll leave the rest to the imagination. Fortunately, said bird just broke the vane and not the wind instruments which are on a separate bar and still work fine. No news on how the Booby is doing.

A note to our friend Dave Nieuwstad on S/V Free Spirit who arrived back in La Cruz just in time for us to leave. Dave: Thanks again so much for the nice bottle of wine (which we are saving for when we catch a fish). Also, Ann made bread from your recipe last night and it came out terrific!

From Ann- I know that Sue (Bob’s sister) will be pleased to know that the Admiral on Charisma has specific rules about claiming “birth month”. According to the Admiral (yes, I know the Admiral very well), if you do not claim “birth month” on the 1st of the month you have missed the opportunity to do so. Sorry Bob, you will just have to settle for celebrating your special day only today out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean! I am sure your family is singing the Swedish birthday song anyway. We celebrated with a yummy pasta dinner (not made by Bob) and those delicious Ginger Spice Cookies!

And in answer to Sue’s question on our last blog, I love the night watches! In fact, I let the birthday boy have a full 8 hours of sleep last night. The moon was glorious, not quite full but shedding lots of light. When the moon finally set at about 5am I was treated to a very special sight. Originally I was concerned and thought that Charisma was passing gas until I realized we were going through a large school of jelly fish. Phosphorescent bubbles were popping up from the stern of Charisma. They were actually all around us. Looked like popping bubbles!