April 27, 2008.

Today we had some real excitement - we are 1200 miles from shore and while we were both down below we heard a helicopter! We ran up to the cockpit and sure enough an orange chopper was hovering over us. It had the floater skids on. He just kept hovering - I could see the pilot's face he was so close - so smiled and I waved. He waved back and then took off. So bizarre! It looked like it was a search and rescue bird, had the Mexican flag painted on the side. We tried to hail him on the VHF but
got no response so we don't know what it was about. Where did he come from? What was he doing clear out here? Was he searching for someone who was lost at sea? Did I scare him off because he saw me in my swimsuit!? Eerie indeed!
This has been a busy day. I've been doing laundry (by hand in the sink) and we are house (boat) cleaning. I overcame my Weenie-ness and braved the top deck. I actually donned my safety gear and, armed with clean wet cloths, set about to wipe down the chrome rails the windows and rigging. Destiny has a lot of chrome and a lot of portholes and windows! The scariest part for me was going out on the bowsprit with the gennaker (sister to the spinnaker sail) flying. Then I attacked the salt encrusted
windows, and cleared the decks of the dead flying fish and squid who had committed suicide on Destiny's topside. The squid were nasty because they release their ink when they die, so I had a bit of scrubbing to do there. Smells good too! I kept thinking, "There should be some way to harvest all of this salt!". When I got back into the cockpit, my rear was coated in salt crystals. Guess I got exfoliated!
I finally got an email from my wonderful and beautiful daughter back in Texas. She has an upscale hair salon in Seabrook, TX and has often been asked to do the hair styling for models on photo shoots. In fact, she has been asked to participate (model) in some of them once the photographers get a look at her. There is to be an Ed Hardy shoot/show in town and she has been asked to do the hair for that one. I'm so proud of her! She and our grandson are getting settled into new digs and this will be
the first in her last 3 moves that we haven't been there to help her out. I don't think we are too upset about it.
We are nearing the half-way point on this voyage, and have stayed in constant contact with our sister voyager, Imagine. They are several days behind us but it is so nice to know they too are out here. Imagine is a beautiful 50 ft Hallberg-Rassy. Very nice teak decks, center cockpit like ours. We are both very happy to be making this journey in big, heavy, well-built cruisers. I cannot imagine doing this singlehandedly or in a smaller craft, such as Tania Aebi did years ago. If you want a good
read about adventure, bravery and overcoming tremendous odds, read her book, Maiden Voyage.