Moving Slowly South

Well, another day and more miles behind us. We are still running due south along 126W longitude and are experiencing very unusual weather. Just now we have basically no wind with a gentle NW swell. We have been under power for most of the past 24 hours with about 4 hours yesterday afternoon when we had enough wind for the asymmetrical spinnaker. It was the longest continuous use we have ever put that sail to. Cathy are both well rested and are getting used to shorter more frequent sleep times. As it turns out we are likely getting 8-9 hours of sleep a day each, just not all at once. Our wheel autopilot has been a real saviour. We had serious doubts that it would work well enough on the ocean but we were in no position to replace it before we left. It has been going strong for the past couple of days with only occasional hiccups. It has made standing watches a lot less tiring than it could have been. Without wind, no wind steering so we would have to hand steer if not for our faithful "George".
We had the most amazing experience last night. Cathy went on watch at midnight and we were joined by a pod of dolphins. Their wake trails were incredibly lit up by phosphorescence. As they swam along with the boat you could see where they were coming from by the long trail they left in the water. The really incredible part is that they remained with the boat until after I went on watch at 03:00. It is always amazing to us to have dolphins and porpoise swim with the boat. We are not alone in our ability to play as there can be no other reason for them to surf the bow wake for so long. We have not seen any bird life out here but do see the occasional fish jumping. I briefly toyed with the idea of dragging a line but quite frankly we don't have room to store the fish, if by some miracle I did catch one, and we really don't need to supplement our food on a 6 day passage. While we are on the subject of fishing, the fishing fleet(s) seem to appear out of nowhere around 18:00. For the second night in a row, they just appear. We don't see another vessel all day and then wham, there they are. Do they hide all day and then try and surprise us? The first night out we tried to steer around them. A hopeless idea as they are fishing in circles. The next night we basically stayed our course. A couple of boats seem to be curious and came relatively close but no problem. Last night we had at least 7 boats around us. Only one came close. I guess they are getting used to us being here. Maybe they are just shy, hmm I wonder….. I can't wait for tonight's show. Better than television by a long shot!

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