Leander is at 19 30 N, 56 W, sailing at 6.2 knots on a course of 200 magnetic in 17 knots of wind. We’ve jibed the boat toward our final destination, and have good winds that keep the sails filled at a moderate speed.

We caught a fish this morning! But it came on the line when Sima (and the kids) were on watch in the early morning, at the same time as a rain squall hit. Sima pulled it in close enough to get a look, but couldn’t do much more with the squall hitting and the kids to get below. By the time Paul got up to retrieve it, the fish had returned to its friends in the seas. Oh well. Perhaps, though, with the calmer seas the fish might actually now be seeing the lures. We’re still sailing through a lot of weed, and need to clean the hooks every twenty minutes.

The red-billed tropic bird is still with us. He tries to land on the mast sometimes, and checks out the fishing lures that we trail behind the boat. Maybe he’s thinking that he’ll grab the fish before we do? We also see a swallow-like bird at a greater distance from the boat. A tern or a petrel? We can’t tell. And we saw just the second boat during our entire passage an hour ago. We had seen a big freighter four days ago, and just now saw a modern-looking three-masted sailing vessel, one of those enormous, sleek, for-and-aft rigged jobs whose sail shape makes you question whether the boat is actually moving under wind power alone.

Alexander says, “It’s been rough seas. My mom was feeling sea sick, but now she’s doing better. Mom and Dad give us new books and new toys, and that’s why I’m happy. I also get to watch videos. Dad gets mad when we don’t clean up the toys, but we’re getting better with that!”

We again sailed 150 nautical miles during the last 24 hours, for a total of 2,680 miles done, and 382 to go.