(insert clever title here)

Unusual view of the jib!

We're sailing along again under main and jib, wing-on-wing, in classic downwind tradewind sailing (pretty steady 15 knots, just south of east), on direct course for St. Lucia.

We continue to marvel that we've sailed, so far, the entire way - we've only had the engine on to slow down the apparent wind over the deck while hoisting/dousing the spinnaker. And we've been on the same tack since we set the sails outside of Santa Cruz harbor! Just amazing.

We have a truly enormous lure out on the fishing line, hoping for a tuna; we hooked up something early this morning, but it escaped before we could see what it was.

Sofia continues to experiment with various baking projects, and the crew is only too happy to demolish the results - we had little croissants for a morning snack, amazing with butter and jam. (Which we have taken to pronouncing "yam" in deference to the Swedish pronounciation. The container for same is the "yam yar.")

We all ended up being way too lazy to dress up properly for the evening halfway party, and mostly lounged around on deck snacking and watching the moon come up.

Yet Another Beautiful Sunset at Sea

Flora and fauna count:

• lots of flying fish, of course
• one flying fish suicide attempt foiled by Sean; only one very tiny carcass found on deck in the morning.
• another big white bird with a long tail
• assorted other seabirds
• Casey and Sean saw a sea turtle

Casey says: "Rock and roll! Couldn't be nicer - ocean sailing at its best!"

4 Dec 2009 15:08 UTC 16 26.727 N 40 54.289 W

-Anne, for WT