Well, after whining about this or that over the last few days, I am happy to report that we had a magical night of sailing. Winds were from the west at about 10 kts. The sea was flat except for the large swells that raised Heldeleine up and nudged her of her way at 6-7 kts. During our watch from 11-2, my dad and I observed the full Moon move from dead ahead to 90 degrees to starboard. The Moon illuminating the sea in a beautiful shade of silver. The boat rocking gently and all life seeming impossibly good. Tom made a friend during his 2-5 watch and here is Tom’s Story: I heard a chirping in the darkness behind the boat about 0300, (sounded like a dolphin, but I new the dolphins weren’t talking to us…) I went to the fishing line that we had trolling behind the boat, and it felt like we had caught something, but I could not see in the darkness behind the boat. I reeled in the line, and again part way down a bird had gotten caught up in the line, I hoisted the bird aboard onto to port helmsman seat and removed the line from her wing, the bird was a little freaked out of course, and stayed sitting on the seat even though it was free of the line…I went below, searched out some crackers and brought them up and feed her…apologizing to her for the misfortune with our fishing line…I wasn’t sure if she had been hurt from the mishap, but she hung out with me for the next two hours and I talked to her every now and then sitting in the cockpit together….. Pierre came on watch at 0500, and I informed him of our new pet. When I came up on deck around 0900 the bird had flown away at some point, luckily uninjured. We are now 137 miles to Horta. —- This e-mail was delivered via satellite phone using OCENS’s OCENS.Mail software. Please be kind and keep your replies short.