Since our last entry, we have continued to sail north, and we are now about 350 miles from Kaneohe Bay. We are also about 1830 miles from San Francisco, but unfortunately we can’t sail in a straight line to our destination, so we will have to sail many more miles than that.
Our position as of 7:00PM PDT is lat 27 deg 14 min N, lon 156 deg 41 min W. We are moving ta about 6 kts, the wind having lightened up considerably today. It is now blowing about 13 kts, trending down from the previous day’s 20 kt average. The skies have been a mix of sunny and overcast and the seas are much smaller than they had been for our first two days.
At midnight this morning we reported in to the Pacific Cup return fleet radio net, run by Green Buffalo. VALIS relayed several boat’s positions when they and Green Buffalo could not hear each other. Our midnight-to-midnight run was 160 miles, which isn’t too bad considering the seas we were sailing through.
Early this morning (3:00AM) we saw a brightly-lit ship dead ahead. We sould see from our AIS receiver that her name was “Kilo Moana”, and she was barely moving. We called her on the VHF, and she told us that she was conducting plankton and deep-sea microbe research. We altered course to pass about 1-1/2 miles astern. As we passed, we chatted with the captain, who told us they were doing research for the University of Hawaii, and would be at sea for five days.
After sunrise we had a guest drop in. This was a booby, who perched on our bow pulpit for several hours. Occasionally our sail adjustments would annoy our feathered friend, who took off and circled our boat until things on-board had calmed down to it’s liking.
About noon we let the Monitor windvane steer the boat, saving the power that the hydraulic autopilot had been using. On the way home, we hand-steer as little as possible.
The crew is definitely getting their sea-legs. Paul Carson is currently preparing dinner of baked chicken and salad, which is smelling great. We shall see how this little experiment goes…
-Paul