Better weather, plus some visitors

I wish I could post a picture of the water color out here. As I type, we are 312 nautical miles into our trip, with 1816 nm remaining. The deep, dark navy blue that we are used to seeing in our home waters has lightened to a shade approaching turquoise. The sun is shining brilliantly, with some slight haze on the horizon. The wind is only 15-18 knots out of the west, and keeping us moving at a steady 6 knots. Best of all, the swells have decreased to only a couple feet from the north, with a long duration between.
Needless to say, Jon and I feel much better! It's nice to finally be able to eat without wanting to vomit afterwards. Which, by the way, if anybody wants a sure way to lose weight, just hop on a sailboat to Hawaii and let the magic begin. Plus, we've been catching up on sleep lost that first horrible night out. Luckily, the worst conditions we will encounter on this journey will probably be just those first 50 miles from home. It's all mellow from here on out.
We've had a few visitors lately. A pod of two or three whales cruised by, with spouts and dorsal fins that look similar to blue whales. However, they were much smaller and more of a silver color than what we've seen on blues...maybe it was a group of their smaller cousins, Minke whales?
Also, we have spotted a few sea birds with a huge wingspan, like 5 or 6 feet across. I would say they were albatross, but they are a dark brown color, with a hooked black beak, so I'm not sure. They make flying look so effortless, as they literally just glide along the sea breezes without barely moving a muscle.
The most interesting visitor we had was a teeny tiny sparrow or finch that had no earthly reason for being out on the ocean. This poor little bird, which was barely the size of the palm of my hand, was flapping furiously towards us. It wanted desperately to land, and tried on our stainless steel handrails. It kept slipping off, but found our backstay to be a better diameter to hold on to. It landed about eye level with Jon, who was sitting at the stern. It stared at him for awhile, so he offered it some crumbs from his sandwich. The bird just stared at those too, then back at Jon. After a few seconds, it took off again. I wish it had stayed longer, to recharge after what must have been a long journey.