Our birds “friends,” and I use that term very lightly, have stuck around for a couple of days now and have completely worn out their welcome. Sure, they’re fun to watch as they try to keep their balance on the bow as the boat pitches and rolls, taking breaks to dive after a school of flying fish, using their feet and tails as they come in for a landing. What’s not fun, though? The sheer amount of poop they generate and fling at the boat. They’ve taken to using our sails (and canvas, and decks) as target practice. Yesterday they even had the audacity to use crew member Tom as the target. And scored a direct hit! We’re trying to take it in stride – you know, seeing nature and all – but we suspect the cleaning we’ll need to do when we reach the Galapagos will be enough to drop the Red-footed Boobie from our list of favorite birds.

On the sailing front, we continue to take two steps forward and one step back. For the last two days we’ve had great wind propelling us west… unfortunately, we need to be going southwest. At night the wind lessens and we turn south and motor into it to get back on course. We anticipate at least another day or two of the same. Not the passage we would’ve picked had we had an option but we’ll get there sooner or later.

Current location: Lat 00 52.265N Long 086 32.634W
Distance traveled: 136 NM