It is 00:47 and I am on watch. Earlier tonight we had a sea bird land on the top of the mast and ride for a short period. Later tonight on Karen’s watch one landed on the MOB box on the stern rail. He has his head tucked under his wing and appears to be sleeping. He has probably been there 4 or more hours. I think they get tired and we appear as a nice landing resting place. We have taken flash photos of it without causing it much disturbance. One of our boats has had engine problems on this leg. He had engine problems on the trip to Port Vila. He had water in his oil which they thought came up thru his exhaust. He had mechanics on the boat to work on it. They took part of the engine apart and put it back together. It started and ran but had a little click sound. At that point his mechanics thought he was ok to do this leg. At the present I do not know what happened to his engine today. He reported that he fixed it. Cesarina, another boat from Hamburg has taken down their sails to wait for Ain’t Fancy. They will sail along close to them to lend a hand if they have more problems. The two potential problems are that they need the engine to charge their batteries which run the navigation equipment and it would be harder to maneuver thru all the reefs to get to Mackay once they reach the outer reefs. The interesting fact is that these two boat owners were born in the same hospital and I do not think they knew each other before this trip. I think we have two others with the same story on this trip. How many degrees of separation is that for a trip of 360 degrees? May fair winds fill your sails with old friends you never knew! Bob
