Position: 18 degrees, 29 minutes south; 158 minutes, 34 degrees west (125 mile day)

We expect landfall tomorrow morning IF the wind holds which is questionable. It’s gone light now so whereas all the bouncing around the last couple days was from the wind and big waves, now it’s because of the light wind. Today was a gorgeous day. The wind dropped to 14 knots and the waves down to 2 meters. We put the main up and set the jib out on the pole and ran wing and wing all day. It was the kind of day that is why we love cruising. The wind has dropped to about 6 knots now so we are eking out about 3-4 knots boatspeed. We have to get to Aitutaki by noon because that is high tide so if the wind completely drops out we’ll have to motor-sail.

Not too much else to update. Dinner was Mahi II. I sautéed some veggies that were about to go bad (an eggplant and a bell pepper) with an onion, threw it in leftover rice and seared the mahi on the cast iron pan with some spices. Yum. Also, we had the ceviche on crackers for lunch. Can you eat too much fish? I don’t think so….

That’s about it for today. Stay tuned for our update of our attempt at the pass at Aitutaki.

P.S. To JHam: Jerry-we do swab the deck, but with a brush. There’s no room on board for a swab although I used to swab the decks on a schooner I crewed on when I was in my teens. Ann swabbed, er, brushed the deck after we caught the Mahi. Fish scales everywhere although I’m getting much better about not spraying blood all over the place. In fact, these days, there’s very little blood when I gut and fillet the fish just lots of swearing as the boat rolls and I have to hang on to fish, knife and self. At least I no longer have to change my clothes and take a shower (bucket bath) after catching a fish. 🙂 You should have seen some of the early attempts. Psycho!