Tuesday, Aug 3, 11:55 PM PDT
Another lazy day here. We sailed about 43 miles from 8:00PM yesterday t 8:00 PM today, which is slightly better than the day before, and a little suprising, since the forecast was predicting much lighter winds for today. The wind has dropped off, but not by much. Perhaps tomorrow. The seas have been small, and the sky usually clear. There are patches of clouds, with faster, cooler air under them, and light air behind them, but these hardly qualify as squalls. All in all, it’s been extremely pleasant We lounged about in the cockpit for much of the day, listening to music.
This afternoon, minutes after putting the hook in the water, Dick caught (and filleted) another Mahi Mahi. Fish tacos for dinner (fortunately we haven’t grown tired of these), followed by a Key Lime pie made by Carl. For lunch we had leftovers: Chicken tacos, and/or noodles with tomato sauce.
When we left Kaneohe we engaged the hydraulic autopilot, but the next morning we began using the Monitor windvane instead. This mechanical marvel has been steering us continuously since Thursday. The Monitor frees us from having to steer, consumes no power, and we couldn’t be happier with its performance. Today we ran the engine for the first time since leaving Kaeohe, just for an hour to charge the batteries. They still have a long way to go before being fully-charged, but we expect to be motoring quite a bit over the next several days,and this will also serve to top of the batteries.
Our projected course takes us north tonight, but by mid-day tomorrow we will begin a slow turn towards Seattle. Here are some distances: We are 939 miles from Kaneohe, 1427 miles from the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and 1453 miles from the Golden Gate Bridge. We are due west of Carmel. It’s a long way from anywhere.
Best, Paul / VALIS