No country, International waters, Pacific Ocean 18 Aug 2010 14.6523S 157.3408W

Yesternight’s half moon, looked swollen tonight, and it just dropped below the horizon. Taurus is upside down, and feels like it’s on the wrong side of the boat. Not a good position for a bull – upside down and backwards. And Caseopia’s mom, will be giving her hell for tilting her chair like that, especially if the back legs break. I’m back on the dog watch – haven’t seen any yet (dogs that is). We’ve had 4 days of steady 15-knot winds out of the East, with more of the same predicted for the next 4 days. Sailing doesn’t get much better – well if the wind were just a hair more from the southeast, we could take down the whisker poles, move the staysail out of wing and wing position and over to our starboard side, then maybe we’d roll a little less, but I’m really splitting hairs there, it’s been a super comfortable sail, a very reasonable 145NM/day. TTG right now is hovering just over 2 days to Suwarrow.

Today’s fish-on excitement netted us some beautiful Mahi Mahi filets. But Frank tossed the head. I can hear my sister-in-law Roselyn’s cry “Mon morceau prefere!” On our eclipse day we caught a Mahi Mahi, and Frank, on tossing the head overboard, lamented the sweet meets found there, saying any Polynesian would be horrified. When we went to the supermarket in Tahiti, they had just the heads for sale – $25 each. Apparently the cheeks and the top of the head are a delicacy. But it’s a big head to fit in our little oven, so we fed the “preferred morsel” to the sharks, yet again. Maybe someday I’ll get a taste – when we have a bigger oven (or a smaller fish) on hand. We’ll have to make do with the poor man’s peices, the leaner filets, where the fish does all his work. Still – Yum.

Frank announced yesterday that we’ve logged over 12,000 miles since we left Anacortes in September of last year. In response to many questions about where we are going and when we stop, I’ve often answered that life is more about the path than the destination (although the destination shapes the path). So at 12,000 nautical miles, and a rough average of 5 knots/mile, we’ve lived a lot of path these past few months (and a few destinations too).

xoxomo