Land ho!

Land!! We spotted Molokai around 4:00 this afternoon, and Oahu not long after that. (Jason said, "I see Oahu," and I thought he said "I see a wahoo" and was pretty confused for a minute.) We were still about 25 miles away, but that didn't dampen our excitement at all. Honolulu is on the far side of Oahu, through the Kaiwi Channel, so we're now about 40 miles away from our final destination. We've got one more night on the Pacific and then we'll head in to the marina early tomorrow morning. If there's any way to make it in time for breakfast, we've all decided what we're hoping to find. Bread and fruit. Any kind.

The last couple of days have been superb. We've had fantastic weather interrupted by brief spurts of rain, done more swimming, and still get a kick out of teak surfing -- always with someone on board, of course, in case of another slip off of the line. Grace said she wasn't scared, but I was. It was shocking to me how quickly she disappeared behind the swells, and that was the flattest water we've seen for the whole trip.

Jason woke me up a couple of nights ago to help him take down a sail that had ripped in the night. While we were working, he flipped on a big spotlight to help us see what we were doing, and my first reaction was to feel self-conscious about crouching in my swimsuit bottom and pajama top (yes, that's what I was sleeping in), with my crazy hair flying around in the wind, trying desperately to reach a line and not fall off of the boat. I guess I forgot that we were alone in the ocean. Not a lot of bystanders.

I woke up to the sound of birds this morning, which was weird, and now we can see lights on Oahu, which is REALLY weird. We haven't been seeing any lights at all at night except for the stars, and maybe a ship in the distance every few nights, and now there are all of these lights on the horizon. It's very disorienting. We just had a family conference about whether we were seeing a star or a ship or a lighthouse.

Last night, we had mac and cheese, and tonight, spaghetti with marinara sauce. Tomorrow, we'll be eating in a restaurant! Excitement abounds!