So Day 4 has come and gone, and we're still tired and lethargic. So much for getting used to this. I have a strong feeling we are going to arrive in the Marquesas with a filthy boat, filthy clothes, and having spent the final two weeks eating beans straight from the can. I don't feel like cooking, washing, writing, reading, eating, having sex, speaking, talking, chewing gum, or walking. What I really enjoy doing is sleeping, sitting on the helm, and then sleeping some more. These two activities are punctuated by a sporadic desire to sit in the cockpit and stare at the horizon for an hour without moving my head.

I stretch periodically.

This must be what life is like as a cat. Except, they probably don't have the dull ache at the back of the head and behind the eyeballs.

Our most exciting moment in the past 24 hours was gybbing around yet another parked tanker. Holy frickin' god you know the economy is bad when you can sail out into the middle of the Pacific and randomly run into two tankers simply parked in the middle of nowhere. Not moving. Not responding to the radio. Not doing anything. They just sit there like enormous poorly lit steel islands. The sheer enormity of the odds against a random puddle jumper seeing one of these is mind boggling. The fact that I personally have nearly run into two of them during my 2AM to 5AM night watches gives me the heebie jeebies.

We ate the last of the pineapple and colored peppers yesterday. Had to throw away two cucumbers. I made a large batch of tomato vegetable soup with some of the end of line veg which tasted delicious despite its origins. We're just about out of store-bought bread. Really, that stuff is nasty. It lasts almost forever in the refrigerator, and I do not say that in tones of admiration. Within a day or so, I'm going to have to get serious about being a Real Cook, baking bread, getting my yogurt culture bouncing, and pulling out the frozen meats for stews and bean soups. What seemed logical and tasty a month ago now appears in an insurmountably active heap of effort. You can not imagine how difficult it is to soak beans in water.

Speaking of the cat, our most amusing moment of the day was watching Dulcinea attempt to return to one of her favorite perches on the locker we've created under the bimini. A combination of raising the locker to make it smaller and the increased girth of the cat resulted in the perfect lolcat moment with Dulci firmly stuck in the locker, her back legs, tail and soft white underbelly squished out and hanging helplessly. There was the sound of her scramble to dig her claws into something to get purchase. With an almost audible >pop< the rest of her disappeared. There was then an indignant silence from the locker as the family laughed hysterically. After a suitable interval when it presumably was made clear to us that she had enjoyed the pleasures of the locker sufficiently and didn't need to leave because she simply Does Not Fit, the first half of Dulci reemerged. The rest of her remained firmly wedged in the locker whilst she tugged and tugged on her hindquarters. Once again, her aft eventually burst out and threw the entire kitty into the helm in a big, fluffly, spitting mad ball.

Of such moments our days are made full.

~ Toast (April 21, 13:00 UTC)
16 37.86N 115 27.18W