By 0100 yesterday morning, the wind and seas were steadily picking up and it officially became uncomfortable. The waves are steep and sharp, which is not a pleasant motion to start with, and they are incredibly close together. So, the boat will be riding over three or four waves at a time, making the boat move multiple directions at once. It is constant and not good. On the bright side (literally), the moon is half full and giving off a lot of light, making visibility good.

By 1000, it had gotten a little better, but no much. Winds were down to 7 10 knots real on the nose, but the waves hadn’t calmed down as much as the wind. But that little bit of improvement made it more tolerable to be aboard. It was sunny and bright out.

At 1300, we passed the Prime Meridian. We are now back in the western hemisphere. Another milestone indicating we are getting closer to home.

The wind didn’t change much for the rest of the day. The seas slowly but surely got better all day, and when we say slowly, we mean it. By 1900, the ride was actually pretty good. By midnight it was very smooth. Thank God.

By 0300 this morning, the wind had shifted to our rear and was down to one knot. The ride was fabulous, like floating along on silk. The moon was half full and vibrant, the light brightly reflecting off the smooth water to make visibility excellent. About 0315, the moon set. As it got lower in the sky, it went from white to gold to a yellow orange as it dipped into the water. It was so beautiful. Once the moon was gone, millions of stars lit up in the sky. They reflected on the water, and the bioluminescence was sparkling like diamonds. It was pretty spectacular.

By 1000, the wind had picked up to 3 – 8 knots real and shifted to our starboard beam. Our magical ride was gone, but the waves are small and following, so it is still a good ride.

By 2000, the wind had further shifted to our port aft. We had seen a good number of other boats the entire passage, but now we were seeing a dense concentration of boats, particularly large ships. We are definitely nearing the strait. At one point we had a scare where it looked like a boat was going to hit us, but he changed course at last second. They were the burdened vessel, but we were getting ready to take evasive measures when he changed course. Scary.

Christi wasn’t feeling good when we left yesterday, but she thought it was just allergies. Later, she realized she has another cold. She is feeling miserable and all she wants to do is sleep, which makes doing watches hard. Not feeling good has also made her grumpy. Eric has done some longer watches to let her sleep some more. Christi is really thankful the seas have calmed down. Unpleasant seas are much harder to take when you are not feeling good to start with.

Late last night, someone started making clicking noises on channel 16. It didn’t stop until late in the evening tonight, lasting almost 24 hours. It was maddening. We had to turn off our main radio and listen on our handheld. We’d turn on the main radio periodically to see if it had stopped. We are baffled as to how it could have lasted so long. Don’t their fingers get tired? Don’t they go off watch? Can’t they figure out anything else to do with their time? Probably a defective radio somewhere.

We forgot to mention that Andrea and Francesca and Jaime brought us some goodies. Andrea brought us a nice local Italian wine that we haven’t tried yet. He also brought us some cookies that are a secret recipe from his village. They are awesome. They are called Brutti e Buoni and they are crispy, yet super light and airy. They are very sweet, with a lot of finely chopped nuts. Usually you associate lots of nuts with heavy, so these are unique. They crumble to dust easily.

Francesca brought us two types of cookies and a salami from her village. One kind of cookie is a biscotti called Cantucci di Toscana. It is made with almonds and has a nice amaretto flavor that goes nice with a cappuccino. The other variety of cookies were soft and chewy and tasty, with small bits of dried fruit. We ate them all and threw away the wrapper without writing down the name. The salami was clearly home made, as opposed to factory made. It has whole peppercorns and little fat, with a strong, aged flavor. It is nice with crackers and cheese.

Jaime brought us an English Whiskey Cake, which is a fruit cake with a kick. Also quite good. We are having so much fun trying all the local foods of the world. Food is an interesting reflection on cultures, especially in places like Italy where the food is different from village to village.

And while we are on the subject of food, here is a blog question:

Q: Did you like the zucchini flowers served in Greece and Italy?
A: The zucchini flower doesn’t have much taste. All you can taste is the stuffing they put in it. Of all the different stuffed foods we had there, we liked the grape leaves best. They kind of have a slight lemony taste to them.