We are now in the Southern Hemisphere again having crossed the equator for the third time.  I put a message in a wine bottle again and tossed it overboard.  I put a request in the message that if anyone ever finds the message to let me know where and when they find it.  I wonder if I will ever hear about it.  I did the same thing when we crossed the equator for the first time just north of the Galapagos Islands and have never heard back from that message, but you just never know!!
I gave a toast to Neptune and the Wind Gods when we crossed the line and they must have been paying attention. After a couple of hours of bobbing around catching ever little wind gust the wind filled in and we were almost able to make our heading and we were actually moving along quite nicely at about 4 knots. The wind has continued until tonight when a huge ugly system came through and put a wrench in the works.  The wind picked up and we were moving along at a brisk 7 knots then wham, it started raining and we had to reef and we were seeing 30 knots over the deck, not recommended for the week at heart.  This lasted for about an hour and a half, that seemed like five and then bob, bob, bob, nothing.  Just the equatorial current sweeping us thirty degrees off our course at two and a half knots, yech!  It seems to have come up again so I had better sign off, we have only 144nm to Chagos so the Wind Gods being in our favour we should be there in a couple of days.  Hope all is well with everyone, drop us a line.