Ahoy VALIS Fans…
We are 7 nm west of Race Rocks, which means another 23 miles after that and VALIS will be home in Friday Harbor. Without getting all sentimental and stuff, let’s just say it has been an honor and a pleasure to be trusted to bring the sailing vessel, VALIS, back to her owners and her relatively new home in Friday Harbor. Seriously, very few people are given the opportunity we four sailors have been lucky enough to experience. We each arrived at this point in our sailing careers in very different ways, but here we are sharing an adventure that is beyond words…so we took lots of photos, and shot lots of videos that hopefully will find there way online via the VALIS blog, Sailing Anarchy, Scantlings, etc. so people can enjoy our fun vicariously.
To recap the day…we had a heck of a night and morning encountering fishing boat after fishing boat. The wind finally packed it in at 22:10 HST, which is when we started motor-sailing. We tried sails only for a short time to no avail and have been under the iron genny for close to 24 hours. We have plenty of fuel…we filled the tanks with diesel in our gerry cans. Right now, we still have about 13 gallons left in the cans.
Today we saw sunfish, a humpback, seals and sea lions, Dall porpoises, Laysan albatross, a puffin and lots of tonnage coming and going, and we came close enough to fishermen to pass the Grey Poupon if we had any. And, we netted two Vellela for crew to observe…then we placed them back in the water so they could sail on.
So for the final time, here are the numbers:
Position 48″17′N 123*38′W…heading for now is 088*m, SOG 6.5 knots (pedal to the metal), water in the Strait is calm like molden lead…wind close to nil.
We hope you have enjoyed our reports. We certainly have enjoyed sharing stuff with everyone.
Again, thank you Paul and Mary for trusting us with VALIS.
That is all.
VALIS, out…