16-April-2006 Position

2'45.7N/126'53.3W
16-Apr-2006 Noon

• 122nm made good last 24 hours
• 1999 Miles from Z-town
• 1202 Miles to Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands
• S 10-15 knots wind, 5 S swell.

Happy Easter everyone!! As this email is being written the sun is setting and we have dolphins riding Sandpiper's bow. We had a good run last 24 hours. But had to run the engine from midnight to 7am.

Closer and closer to the equator we get. We think that we will be crossing sometime tomorrow night, if we can keep speed up tonight.

Even though we are so far out here we are able to talk to all the other boats that are crossing on the SSB/Ham radio. All the boats left Mexico at different times and different places, but we know most of them from the meetings that we went to in Puerta Vallarta/Z-Town. Most of the boats left before us. And there are a few behind us as well. The closest is 60nm from us. Some of the boats are really fast. Two of the boats that left Z-town the same time as us are getting ready to pull into the Marquesas tomorrow!! Even though I am impressed when Sandpiper is sailing at 7 knots, these boats have been sailing at a constant 8-9 knots. That's almost twice as fast as Sandpiper!!

Today was extreme showering up on the foredeck with the sun shower in 30 knots of wind and 8 ft swells. Not like the shower back home! While you all back home moved your clocks ahead an hour, we changed our clocks back an hour today to confirm with Sandpiper standard time as we are getting so far west. We are also going to be moving our clocks back another hour sometime this week so we will be in the right time zone when we make the Marquesas.

Amy made another bread baking attempt today and another flat loaf. Not sure what we are doing wrong with the bread, but we are blaming it on the French Baker in Barri Navidad who gave us the yeast. It could be that we have kept the yeast in the fridge. Oor we are just doing something wrong, any ideas??

Tom and Amy