Excitement in many forms today; seas, wind, and rain, strikingly real sights and sounds, then, ultimately, the weather breaking mid afternoon in favor of sunny skies and rapidly diminishing unfavorable travel conditions. It was a welcome relief. In particular for everyone cooped up inside basically since our departure yesterday. Needless to say once liberated the deck chairs came out and the luscious, pristine air quenched an innate thirst while various spirits addressed a thirst more base in origin.
Regardless it was well deserved and hard earned.

In all the marvels we traverse out here none compares to living a significant break in the weather that transforms a miserable sea into a becoming realm of tranquility. The measure of relief is so grand that it erases the previous extreme in an unbelievably compressed span of time. Within hours, sometimes within minutes, it is as if the prior condition didn't even happen; like waking from a horrid, amazingly real nightmare to realize all is well. The slumber following such an experience is usually so sweet. Such is it when unfavorable weather breaks - the sun shines, seas abate; the seemingly never ending erratic motion ceases replacing a somber, serious atmosphere with a mood of festivity.

It's an up close and personal confrontation with the real world out here, sometimes on the good side of the equation, sometimes on the other. Thank goodness for us, and as an obvious testament to our success, the good far outweighs the opposite. Right now it is good; and is forecast to continue as such for the next three days at least. We are glad of it; and plan to put such conditions to good use. They are calling. Moo...

Tim Ekstrom