The crossing. Well, here we go again. Once more I view my larder with feelings verging on panic. A few guavas, a couple of rock-hard mangos and avocados, something called filodendros that look like long green pine cones, three kinds of bananas, chestnuts, and baccalao. At least our guest crew are older than the cadets were, without their terrifying, ferocious, insatiable appetites. But somehow I worry just as much about this crossing as I did the first.

We've pretty much wrapped up the goodwill part of our tour, at least the more formal parts of it. No more dockside receptions, no more day sails, no more cannons shooting my precious flour across the harbor. But no more windfalls of fruit and hors d'oeuvres when the caterers pack up and leave. I remind myself that my idea was to empty the boat, to have as little as possible to unload in Baltimore and carry over on the books till next spring. But whenever I see somebody innocently enjoying a pear, I feel a flash of guilt and worry. That's one less pear! Why didn't I buy more pears? It will almost be a relief to finally run out of fresh produce and start opening cans and boiling beans. The finish is always stressful.

Tomorrow is a big day because that's the day we jibe and go west. For the past five days, ever since Madeira, we've been running almost due south. Tonight we're just about at the 20th parallel, almost to the Cape Verdean Islands. We have been taking this route because of the Azorean High, our first big obstacle. The tricky thing with sailboats is how you have to work with the elements, not against them. Now that we're south of the Azorean High, we can catch the Trade Winds and make our way west, barring any meteorological complications.

But now we're cruising along at 8.7 knots, with a 25 knot breeze abaft the beam and it's pretty idyllic. The Milky Way is overhead, and a little above the horizon are the steady gleams of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. We're going so steady you can make out the moons of Jupiter in the binoculars. And in the sea, mirroring the stars, is the glow of bioluminesence as our boat disturbs the tiny sea creatures. It shows up green in the white wake, little sparks the same color, the same phenomenon, as fireflies. But the water is so clear here, the little sparks turn it all a sort of malachite, even where it's not sparking. We create a green carpet in our wake that fades about a mile in the distance, and a lot of distinct pops like little green flashbulbs where our bow wave first disturbs them. When dolphins come up forward, they leave long trails, like cool green intertwining comets in the water. Mark Twain describes them in "Chasing the Equator." On a more mundane level, you can go to the head and pump the toilet and the porcelain will light up.