Theme for the day: Relaxed. Yesterday’s run (midnight to midnight) was the fastest yet: 172 miles. But we did it without breaking a sweat, all downwind, and much of it under our twin-genoa setup. We kept both sails flying through the night, and the calmer conditions made for a very pleasant ride. Now that we […]

In our last episode, the valient crew of VALIS was about to partake of a spaghetti dinner. What amazing exploits are in store for them in the next exciting episode? Actually, not much happened today (sound familiar?). We had some minor squalls in the night, but nothing that required any sail-changes. We are sailing under […]

Major wind shift! We spent several hours motoring last night and early this morning, waiting for the wind to pick back up and begin coming from the west. Around sunrise it did just that, and we have been sailing since then. It has been totally overcast all day, and a little cool. Dinner last night […]

Not much to report here. We are currently (6:00PM PDT) at latitude 38 deg 24min N, longitude 129deg 04min W, sailing seven knots on a course of 060deg magnetic. We are about 750 miles due west of Occidental (Hi, Mary!). The winds are favorable and moderate, and the seas almost pleasant. It has been a […]

We caught a fish today. It was another Mahi-mahi. We wanted a tuna, but we ate it anyway. Fish burritos are not as good as fish tacos. Besides that, not much happened. Yesterday we prepared a message in a bottle commemerating our halfway milestone, but we decided to seal the cork with caulking. Today it […]

Halfway Home! Today at 3:13PM PDT we crossed the halfway point: 1116 miles to Kaneohe Bay, and 1115 miles to the Golden Gate Bridge. Our position at the crossing of this line was lat 38deg 01min N, lon 156deg 00min W. The skies were blue with mixed clouds, the seas were moderate, and the winds […]

Today we sailed and sailed and sailed. There weren’t any big events to note, but a few small ones: * Our midnight-to-midnight run was 167 nm, our second-fastest of this trip. * At 2:30AM our AIS receiver detected a ship, details unknown, about 10 miles off. We were unable to see it due to distance […]

Ysterday was another day for marine mammals as we continue to sail towards home. On Monday we saw our “sunrise” dolphins, and later that day the whales swam by to see what was going on. Yesterday, a few hours before sunset we were visited by a pod of ten or so dolphins. These playful creatures […]

Yesterday we were motoring, but today we are sailing! Time: 5:00PM PDT Position: Latitude 32 deg, 21 min north, Longitude 153 deg, 47 min west. Course 35 degrees magnetic, speed 7 kts. Having run the diesel engine non-stop for about twenty hours, at 5:00AM PDT we finally got the wind we were hoping for and […]

We have sailed into the heart of the Pacific High. Well, perhaps not *the* High, but it will do for now. The High is actually pretty diffuse at the moment, smeared out over a wide east-west swath. There is no practical way for us to sail around the moderate winds of the western edge, so […]