Location: 16° 21 S 56° 59 E
Monday 01.22.2007

The Schooner Maggie B was at 16° 21 S 56° 59 E at noon on January 22nd. We were under all plain sail, making 6.2 knots in nine knots of wind from the east. We have come 717 NM from the Seychelles and have 229 to go to Port Louis, Mauritius. The weather, both locally as well as in the rest of the Southern Indian Ocean, remains good. We should be in Port Louis by tomorrow afternoon.

Last night’s delights were celestial.

Owen and I sat up the first part of the evening watching Venus, our evening star, set with the two day old moon not far behind. Then during the night Saturn was pretty much overhead, watching our progress. Finally, when Hannah came on deck to relieve me at 0300, we admired Jupiter rising out of the eastern sky, looking like a locomotive headlight roaring right at us.

What we are reading:

I’m working on Conrad’s “Lord Jim,” the story of a merchant marine officer who panics and abandons his ship and its passengers thinking it was sinking (it doesn’t) and then later seeks redemption in the Far East and is killed. Owen is reading Jared Diamond’s “Collapse” about how nations fail. Hannah is reading “The Butter Box Babies” about a Nova Scotia institution which engaged in infanticide, baby selling and child abuse. And Bori is reading “101 Alternatives to Suicide.” (The Captain’s “spider sense” went to 100% alarm on hearing the title, but supposedly it is uplifting…). This may sound depressing, but we are also sharing Garrison Keilor’s Prairie Home Companion Comedy Theater, burning the CD’s into our iPods, and watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail and A Fish Called Wanda on DVD on the laptops. So giggles and guffaws are the Order of the Day.

Sunday and French Toast

Despite today being Monday here and in most of the rest of the world, we declared it Sunday so that we could start the day with French Toast (Pain Anglais for our French readers). Owen was at the controls in the galley and got an A+ for taste (Madagascar vanilla, cinnamon, and crushed cashews) but, alas, a D- for execution as most of the batter went into the reefer, spread over 30 days of supplies. But he got up, dusted himself off and got back in the saddle and the second round was a great success.

All is well.