Report from VALIS – Aug 27 (and the morning of Aug 28)

As of Thursday, Aug 28, 9:30 AM PDT, VALIS was as lat 34deg 25min north, lon 156deg 51min west. We are sailing on northeasterly course at a speed of about 4 knots. As was predicted, the wind has shifted to come from the west, and is light. The seas are fairly flat.

Dinner Tuesday night was spaghetti. So was lunch Wednesday. We spent Wednesday chasing the wind, with periods of good wind and great sailing, but much of the day we had light and variable winds (and still great sailing, even if we weren’t going anywhere). We are continuing to head towards the USA/Canada border, with the expectation that we will be swinging due east once we are well north of San Francisco. Right now, we are a little bit north, and about 1800 nautical miles west of Santa Barbara.

The big excitement yesterday was when Jim spotted a freighter on the horizon. It had a huge white boxy superstructure, and at first it looked like a cruise ship. We raised her on the VHF radio, and learned that they were on their regular run, bound from Brazil to Korea with a cargo of trucks. As it got closer, we could see a dark hull and the loading ramps of a vehicle carrier. This was our first ship sighting since we left Kauai.

We continue to have visiting Tropicbirds, and yesterday we saw our first Albatross. It was flying within a few feet of the waves at times, and circled us several times before heading north. This dark bird had a very large wingspan.

Paul Grossman made some tasty Chicken Picante, with potatoes and onions, for dinner, and we opened a bottle of Merlot which was enjoyed by all. We made contact with the Pacific Seafarer’s Net, gave our report, and heard the reports from the other boats, which were pretty encouraging. Our three-hour evening watches began at 10:00 PM (the sun is just beginning to set here at that time), with Paul E. first, than Paul G, Daniel, and Jim.

Jim wanted to share some thoughts about his last watch:
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I’d like to talk about my watch last night which was from 7 to 10 AM PDT. This is one of my favorite watch times as there is the greatest variety of conditions and things to see. Starting with the stars, moon and Mars, then first light or as mariners call it twilight, after is the golden red color of sunrise, finishing with the full exposure of daylight and the waves and sky around. Tonight without the light pollution of the city lights the night stars of the Milky Way are so brilliant it seems like I could reach out and touch them. The planet Mars was the brightest body in the sky until a sliver of a new moon appeared the sky. Twilight begins as the stars begin to fade as the eastern sky starts to lighten and displays first the individual outlines and then the groups of clouds themselves.
Before the sun actually sunrises it does a exquisite job of back lighting the clouds beneath it radiating bright golden red colors from the upper edges of those clouds.
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Best wishes to all,
the crew of the VALIS