We continue to move along fairly well, under the circumstances, thanks to the half-ounce I had providentially acquired from Pineapple Sails. It's red with white trim, on the theory that a dark-colored sail will heat up and rise like a hot-air balloon. Kame was nice enough not to snicker until the check cleared, but really it is a very good sail, and we take it down whenever the wind picks up.

We are continuing to make water and electricity through a variety of means. During the day, the solar panel just keeps up with the boat, but over night we need to add about 70 amp-hours, so we run the engine. If we rev it up a bit, we get 80 amps, so we run a bit less than an hour a day. Some of the boats are having electrical problems, and have become almost illegible on the radio check-ins. I want to say "Sparky! Bark once for 37-34 by 136-23 and bark twice for . . ." well, you get the idea. But hey, think of all the weight they saved in batteries.

One competitor has broken his boom. This is too bad because Bill on Cirrus is a really nice guy. But everyone on the boat is Okay.

Woo hoo! 6.1 knots. Rich is at the wheel and shamelessly exploiting a puff.

Dining today should be good. Kim made eggs benedict for breakfast/lunch (okay, SUNDAY BRUNCH), and we're having a lamb stew tonight. At 1228 miles from the finish, we are not yet entitled to the half-way dinner, more's the pity.

The dry ice is all gone, though the food in the coolers is frozen solid. We'll transfer it to the refrigerator today or tomorrow. Maybe today. We don't want it going all mushy on us.

Speaking of mushy, we have turned the fore and aft cabins into honeymoon suites for the two coupled, while we bachelors sleep in the middle bunks. Rich, having briefly snagged the highly-coveted lower port bunk announced "well, it looks like we've all picked our bunks!" John and I disabused him of the notion. Rich now occupies the pipe berth.

Intelligent Life???
As I stuck up my head into the cockpit about 5 am, Lou was pointing the rather bright white light on the horizon. "Better turn on the radar and call'em on VHF." Well, the radar could not pick them up, which sometimes happens with sailboats carrying those lame skinny reflectors, but a very slab-sided ship can fail to appear also. So I hop on the radio to call them. No answer. I hail again on 16 (hailing) and 13 (bridge-to-bridge). No answer. We had been fooled before in 2004, so I checked to be sure that this was not actually the moon, and it was not, for a lovely orange moon was setting ahead of us, and this thing was dead astern.

I played with the radar settings, but still could not pick the item up, which seemed to be white, red, and green. It appeared to be the masthead light of a sailboat gaining on us fast. I went down and hailed again. No answer.

I came up again and looked at the radar and then at our pursuer. "Ah," I said. "Is it big?" queried Lou. "Yes," I replied evenly, "very. And it is coming at us very fast." "Can you hail them?" "No," I said. "There is no intelligent life on Venus."

Nor, it would appear, in a cockpit at groggy 5 am. Once again we have attempted to hail a celestial body. At least this time we will be smart enough not to tell anybody about it.