The wind today does not quite want to play. There is enough of it to make you feel guilty for not sailing, but when I actually put canvas up, especially with the main reefed for the gusts, we are barely doing three knots, which is not progress so much as ambient drift in a more serious shirt. I have checked in with a couple of other boats nearby and they are seeing the same thing. It makes you wonder whether El Niño showed up early, dropped its bag in the hallway, and put its feet up.

So we are adapting. Everything is rigged for a quick sail deployment the moment the wind decides to commit. Until then I am leaning on the engine, with a plan attached. I will keep us pushing forward under power until I am down to four jerry cans, no further. That way we are still closing miles while we can. If the breeze fills in later, fine, we are further along. If it does not, I will slow the show down and sail it out, but at least the bank account has some distance in it. Fueling at the next stop could get strategic, since several of these islands cap how much you can buy in a week, but there will be wind somewhere up the line. There always is.

A couple of solid wins today though. First, a replacement shroud is waiting for me in Rikitea, which is its own kind of relief. I will recruit a set of helping hands when I get there and put the rig back to one hundred percent. Second, fishing. I have been quietly questioning my setup for a while, on the grounds that I have caught plenty of fish in the past and released more than I can count, which I had hoped earned a little karmic credit. So I made a change today, added some extra cord and dropped the lure another fifteen or twenty feet back, kept the cedar plug running with the teaser. Checked the lines about an hour later. No fish, but the hook was gone. Clean bite. Teeth marks on the wood. No calories on the table, but something down there is paying attention now, which counts.

Today is also a quieter one. Easter at sea, missing family. The boat keeps moving, the engine does its careful work, and the messages people have been sending make a real difference, more than I think senders always realize. Bernard Moitessier wrote, "I am continuing non-stop because I am happy at sea, and perhaps also to save my soul." Some days that line is a postcard, and some days it is the whole job description. Today it is the second one. One mile at a time.