[password] minta12
[position] 00 30.510S 037 00.108W
[weather] 2-12kt ENE, mainly sunny, hot and sultry
[status] The past couple of days have been a real mixed bag. The winds have been light and we have been mostly motor sailing. We had one nasty squall with 30kt+ winds and heavy rain for a couple of hours in the dark early hours of the morning. Since then our breeze has been mainly north of east so maybe we are getting through the ITCZ and into the NE trades.

We are about 55 miles from the equator so will cross in the middle of the night. Might have to open the bubbly at cocktail hour and have an early celebration. This will be our fourth crossing of the equator. First time was between Panama and French Polynesia in 2016. Second time was between Indonesia and Singapore in 2017. Third time was last year as we traveled south along the west coast of Sumatra before crossing the Indian Ocean.

Still pretty quiet out here. Saw a few dolphins this morning riding our bow. No dead flying fish on the deck in the past week or more. A few attractive white with black trim booby birds around us fishing by madly diving into the water but thankfully only one poopy splatter on our deck. We haven?t had any recent stowaways at night. We are only a couple hundred miles off the coast of Brazil so maybe the birds head back to land to rest.

Not much for shipping traffic either - maybe one ship a day showing up on our AIS. I did see the lights of a boat on my midnight shift. It was not on AIS, did not have the usual red and green navigational lights and was moving faster than a fishing boat. In the middle of the night, one?s mind thinks of things like pirates and drug runners. Thankfully they didn?t come close and sped on by. They were coming from Brazil and perhaps heading towards western Africa.

1565 Miles to Barbados

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