Day four’s sunrise apparently decided to sleep in behind a thick blanket of clouds. Not long after, the rain arrived. The upside: the rain brought wind, and for a brief and glorious moment we actually sailed—before the engines had to take over again.

The downside: the wind also delivered a “washing machine” sea. Thankfully, it calmed down again as soon as the wind disappeared. A 2.5 m swell rolling in from one direction and a 1 m wind chop from another is… let’s call it “character-building.”
I know—it doesn’t sound like much on paper.

The day floated by in a way that was mainly distinguished by three things: the meals we ate, the flying guest we hosted (a senior member of the red-footed booby squadron—excellent pilot, slightly questionable personal hygiene), and the movie the boys watched.

At one point, in between their usual fighting games, I suggested they might want to try something a bit less… gladiatorial. After some thought they announced they would play “hair salon.”

Now, considering that the two older ones refuse to have their hair cut in real life, this seemed like a fascinating direction.

Predictably, the storyline escalated quickly. The hairdresser somehow became incapacitated and “accidentally” shaved all the customer’s hair off. The customer then became extremely upset and began destroying the salon. Within minutes the game had fully transformed back into a fighting game.

But hey—the effort was there.

To be fair, it wouldn’t be right to say they spend the whole day wrestling. Being stuck on a boat that’s bouncing around like a laundry cycle makes normal movement tricky, so every now and then they need an energetic outlet.

Most of the time they can be found listening to stories, building things with Lego, paper, and glue, or inventing elaborate worlds out of every pillow, cushion, and blanket on board—usually resulting in huts, base camps, or entire pillow civilizations.

One definite highlight of the day was opening the first hidden box of Pringles that Neli had stashed away for our Pacific crossing before we left Akuna. What a treat!!! Finding that secret stash a few weeks ago actually brought tears to my eyes. Yet another reminder why we didn’t take any crew along—the shoes were simply too big to fill.

As night fell, another big rain system appeared on the horizon, which we crossed during the night. With no sails up anyway, the strategy was simple: close the hatches and hide in the dry cockpit until it passed.

Now that we’re getting closer to 6° S, we’re hoping to finally pick up the first breaths of the trade winds. And if those show up as promised, it should be smooth sailing along a sunny blue-water highway all the way to French Polynesia.