Sailing to Micronesia, Day 6

All is well on board on Day 6 of our longest passage since the New Zealand - Tonga run. We are headed almost due north and we crossed the equator yesterday. We had a small crossing ceremony which included some sacrifices to Neptune which included some Solomon Islands coins, a NY giants winter hat, a Vermont National hat (which had been worn to death already), some swimming apparel and a bit of rum, since it's rumored that Neptune appreciates the fire water, and we most definitely want to keep Neptune happy.

It looks like we'll be sailing for another three days or so. The wind has swung around to the east more, which is what we needed to go to Pohnpei, so that's where we are headed. Unfortunately, the wind has died a bit more than we'd like, and we're close to the equator, so, once again, it's HOT. But it's not as hot as the passage to the Solomon Islands or the time we spent there. We have read that 81 is the average high in Micronesia year round, and we are very excited about this. 95+ is a bit much on a regular basis without any AC.

It's also nice to see the entire Big Dipper again. At night it's low on the horizon in front of us and the Southern Cross is low on the horizon behind us. It's very nice that it's been calm enough the last few days to appreciate these details. The first few days were much rougher than we had anticipated, so it was hang on and try to keep nourished and sleep a bit sometimes. Now it's calmed considerably and we've had some time for bread making and book reading the last few days.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention my dissapointing equator crossing toilet flush experiment - it is definitely NOT swirling in the opposite direction now that we are in the northern hemisphere - what's up with that?