We had another postcard perfect day yesterday, covering about 160 miles since we yesterday morning. Shelby beat me for the first time at Kings Cribbage, so she is on a roll. We are also out of the Easy and Medium crossword puzzles (thanks again Don for bringing them) so we are being humbled by the hard ones. We caught four fish - three we released back and the other one chomped off half the lure and swam away. Perhaps we'll have better luck today.
Doug and Shelby are working diligently on celestial navigation - shooting the sun at high noon and stars/moon in the evening. Since most of us cruisers have a number of different GPS's, and paper charts, celestial navigation is really a hobby as opposed to the old days, when it was the only means of determining where you were in the ocean and where you should be heading. Both Doug and Peter have had courses in this, so they are very knowledgeable - so if we should lose all our navigational software and our charts flew overboard - we'd still be good to go!
We have had some disturbing news about the amount of cases of dengue fever this year. This is caused by mosquitos that are carrying it. We already know of three of our personal cruising buddies that have been struck with this since arriving in French Polynesia this year. (one as recently as a week ago in the Tuamotus, where we are headed). There is really nothing to be done if you get it. It basically takes you out of commission for two weeks with severe muscle aches/pains and apparently you sleep all the time. We have found Vitamin B to be a great natural mosquito repellent, so Peter and I take this regularly and don't seem to be bothered by bugs of any kind - although who knows? Poor Shelby can't choke down a Vitamin B if her life depended on it. She is also more susceptible to bug bites, so Doug will make sure she is covered with repellent whenever we are ashore or away from sea breezes.
We have had two squalls this morning before breakfast, requiring all hands on deck (with Shelby comfortably and safely hunkered down below). The good thing about it (yes, Krys I said that for your benefit) is that it happened after daybreak and also the boat needed a good fresh water dousing. As I write this, we are expecting another one to hit in about 6 miles (according to our visual evaluation of the sky and the big blurp on radar). It's nice and warm, so a little rain will be dried from the cockpit in no time.
If all goes according to plan we should arrive tomorrow evening just before sunset.
Will check in again tomorrow morning. Until then.....enjoy the magic and the miracle of the new day.
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