June 26, 2010, 21:19 PDT

N 34°41.937’, W 135°37.638’

Have you ever put on your iPod and gotten right into a mood? I just did that when I selected Beth Orton from the artists’ category and “Stars All Seem to Weep” came on. Today was a good day. After last night’s decidedly horrid passage (see previous blog entry describing the horrors of sailing downwind), it seems like anything would have been an improvement. But today was a good day on its own. The sun came out and the temperature continues to climb during the day making for pleasant days in the cockpit and forcing me to get out from the cabin during my off-watches. After cleaning the last of the dishes in the sink (a never ending battle!), I decided to make a banana-macadamia nut bread. Banana bread always makes me think of my mother as she used to make banana bread all the time when we were growing up. Nostalgic I guess. Anyway, I threw in the macadamia nuts because I didn’t have walnuts on board (the way mom used to make it) and can’t wait to cut into it tomorrow morning.

After my little baking session, I decided to put together the blog entry describing a typical day for Richard and I and that proved to be a great exercise in that it allowed me to examine what options I had available to me in terms of keeping me occupied while en route. Of course I came up with a dozen little projects and we’ll see which ones get done and which ones fall by the wayside (casualties of an over-creative mind that lacks follow through at times).

The black-footed albatrosses that we’ve been seeing out here are interesting in that they are usually flying around solo; though the other day I did see two of them sitting in the water relatively near each other. They are very graceful as they soar what looks like inches above the water, in and out of the troughs formed by the waves, searching for food. I looked them up in the bird book we have on board and it states that they feed on small bait fish and squid. The latter is weird for me to think about because I typically don’t think of squid as being surface dwelling animals. I asked Richard if he thought that meant calamari-like squid (as opposed to the giant squids of the deep) and he just laughed. Little did he know that my mind immediately went into over drive trying to think of a way to catch me some of those elusive squid to whip up a tasty mid-afternoon snack one of these days.

Wow, this music is really mellowing me out right now. The waves are long and rounded, rocking the boat in a gentle to and fro (not the same as last night), the sun has set and there’s just nothing but Beth Orton’s voice singing and the sounds of the waves lapping against Osprey’s hull.