And fore and aft. We were absolutely surrounded by them. What kind? Umm? Atlantic? Speckled grey dolphins with bottley-noses. You tell me.

Turns out, "Dolphins" is one of the many words the dogs know, and they scurry to the side as fast as we primates do to see the spectacle, whimpering excitedly. I fear that they will jump in, creating the legend of the curly Portuguese Water Dogfin, but they are smart enough to stay on the boat (illustrating the difference between their line and the less popular line from the same area (Cao Dom es Tiburon Comida or Dumb Sharkbait Dog).

The wind has moved to the south and built nicely. We are wung out with the code zero to starhoard and the main to port which works fine. There have been suggestions, resisted by the crew, of sailing under spinnaker alone. The spinnaker, a raggedy patchwork evidencing prior experiments, breathes a nylon sigh of relief in its spinnaker bag. We will put it up tomorrow.

We're about 500 miles from Gran Canaria, or 2/9th of the way to St. Lucia. Virtually no traffic out here, though we did just cross paths with a tanker bound for somewhere down the African Coast. We waved, but they were several miles away.

Weather gets a bit nicer every day. Nobody made me eat roasted beets. Things are improving!

Scrabble standings: Me: 2. Everybody else: 0. Muah hah hah hah