Lat: 12 45.708′ S
Long: 86 42.940′ E

We are making good progress, especially now that the wind has become more consistent (15-25 knots). Yesterday was our best day yet — 154 miles. Dallas informs me that we are almost a quarter of the way to the cape at the north tip of Madagascar. Already?! Ha ha.

It’s a long passage for sure, but we are now settled in and enjoying it. The key to these long ones seems to be just keeping oneself occupied. I’ve always had the capacity to be a daydreamer, so I don’t have much trouble with that. (I remember calling a friend after running out of gas on a long stretch of highway, and her response was, "What goes through your head? Bubbles?") What’s more, I tend to view these long periods of solitude on the open sea as an opportunity for me to reflect, appreciate, ponder, and dream — a spiritual experience, if you will. Of course it’s not necessary to be in the middle of the ocean to have this kind of experience, but something about being out here day after day, without any of the hustle and bustle, distractions, noise, etc. of the mainland makes it extremely easy to get into a quiet, euphoric place.

Dallas, on the other hand, has no bubbles in his head and was raised to stay busy. (I was too, but I’m taking a break!) He has been able to stay occupied so far with reading, a bit of software programming, and video editing, but I think we’re going to have to get pretty creative to keep him busy for another 2+ weeks. Wish us luck!

It’s also not a good sign that he’s talking about food that we don’t have already, but I think he’ll be OK. We have plenty of food on board, although we are out of fresh fruit, and our fresh veggie supply has dwindled down to potatoes, onions, and a couple of questionable-looking cucumbers. (We’ve started taking our vitamins to supplement.)

It’s of little use to Dallas, but we have plenty of fish! We caught a wahoo yesterday — a real one, this time. After seeing its dark blue bands and its dorsal sail fin, we realized that the two we’d caught prior were not actually wahoo but barracuda. Apparently I’m a fan of both! Anyway, the wahoo was 3′ long, providing 8 nice filets, so I’m glad we have enough wind to power the freezer.

So this is what a wahoo looks like!