January 23, 2005

Around 6 p.m. after a dinner of steak with mushrooms and onions, we put the 
spinnaker up since the winds died down. After about two hours of thrashing 
about, we took the spinnaker down and turned the motor on.
 
We motored all night with a full moon and two planets in the east. The next 
morning on Shawn's watch (6-9 a.m.) she was visited by a pod of dolphins 
running alongside of the boat.  They stayed for about 20 minutes and swam off!! 
Around 9 a.m, Rudy, Shawn and I put the jib and the main sail wing on wing.  
The wind was at 4 knots and we are going 3.4 knots!!!  We hoped the wind would 
pick up, but it didn't. After we ate our dinner of baked ziti, a pod of 
dolphins came to play with us for about 20 minutes which was the highlight of 
my day!!!  We hope for more winds tomorrow.

Tuesday the 25th, the winds picked up to 10 knots and so we took down the wing 
on wing.  We are going more south now to pick up more speed (5-6.5 knots).

I just want to thank the notes you are sending!!!  It gets pretty isolated our 
here in the middle of the ocean with no news of family or friends.  We really 
appreciate hearing from you!!!! (please just remember to delete this message 
before you send us one....our SSB radio is very slow in getting and sending 
messages)