Heading for the barn!
Since we made such good speed last night, averaging 8-1/2 knots for several hours, and over 8 kts overall, we have decided to sail between the North and Middle / South Farallon Islands then steer for the Golden Gate Bridge. We expect to pass under the span a little before sunset, sailing against an ebb current that peaks at sunset. We should tie up in our Sausalito slip between 8:00PM and 9:00PM.
Yesterday we were pondering dinner and about to bring in the fishing lines for the night when, as the sun was nearing the western horizon, the line on the port side of the boat popped from it’s clothespin and we saw a disturbance in our wake. When Paul C. had reeled it in we found that he had hooked an albacore tuna! It wasn’t particularly large, but Paul quickly carved it into enough to serve four for dinner, and again for lunch (being prepared now).
All through the night we sailed into the rising moon. Racing through the sparkling sea was an experience that we will not soon forget. At sunrise the seas had built and the winds risen, and we are now sailing under reefed genoa and full main, with the wind on the port quarter.
We are now about 24 miles from the Farallon Islands, which we should reach in less than three hours. We will then turn slightly north to enter the dredged ship-channel and avoid the shoals to the north and south of the bay entrance.
It is then eight miles to the bridge, and another three to our slip. We anticipate the end of our voyage with mixed emotions, and while it has been a great experience we look forward to being home again.
-Paul E.
P.S. – VALIS and her crew arrived in Sausalito at 8:45PM, to a great welcome-home reception by family and friends. I will soon fill in the details about our last day on the water, including our very close encounter with a whale, but right now I need a shower and some sleep! -pme

It is now 4:00PM PDT, we have 215 miles to go, we are making good speed towards San Francisco, and we’re wearing sunglasses.
Last night we sailed under the twin headsails until about midnight, but the wind finally dropped to where we couldn’t stand the slatting of the limp sails in the swells. So, we dropped the whisker pole, dropped the extra genoa, furled the roller-furling genoa, and began motoring. At 7:00AM the wind had picked up from the north, so Paul C. killed the engine and unfurled the genoa and staysail to starboard. At 9:00AM we hoisted our repaired mainsail, and we have since been sailing with “all plain sail” directly towards San Francisco.
We have finally begun to see more ships. Last night one passed within four miles, and our AIS receiver detected two others that were too far to be seen. Right now we are tracking a ship that will pass us at a distance of 10 miles, possibly close enough to see.
For most of the day the skies were clear with occasional clouds, and the warm sun made for some very pleasant sailing. The swells are about 10 feet high, but they are very far apart so they don’t do much more than gently lift the boat. Since we are out of range of the Mahi-Mahi (we hope), Paul C. has dropped two hooks back into the sea in hope of catching a tuna. So far, no luck. For lunch today we had hot dogs with pork and beans. Nothing but the finest gourmet faire here on VALIS!
Our probable ETA would be early AM Saturday, but since we want to approach the Golden Gate Bridge in daylight we will probably slow down or heave-to Friday evening near the Farallon Islands, and will shoot for a Saturday mid-morning arrival in Sausalito. Tomorrow we will obviously have a better idea of our arrival time.
Current position: Latitude 38 deg 32 min N, Longitude 126 deg 54 min W. We are sailing on a course of 085 degrees magnetic, at a speed of 6.5 knots.
-Paul

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 are sailing towards the east, instead of the north, the moon rises at the bow of our boat, and this created a beautiful effect with our twin headsails and the patchy clouds. The morning broke with a heavy overcast, and the sky has remained grey all day. The temperature is pleasantly cool, and we have been able to open the hatches and ports to give the boat a much-appreciated airing-out.
Just after sunrise we decided to jibe the boat, since the wind had shifted, sending us north of our desired course which is now directly towards San Francisco. We dropped the whisker pole from the port genoa sheet, and re-repaired the extension line, then put it out on the starboard sail. We then shifted the boom over to port and used the end-of-boom block to hold out the port genoa. In this configuration we can sail a more southerly course. We reconnected the Monitor windvane and we have been sailing like this all day.
Minestrone. This was another high-point today aboard VALIS. Oliver made up a pot of minestrone soup, which we ate with saltine crackers for lunch. This is the action-packed thrill-a-minute life aboard VALIS. Dinner is now being contemplated. We’ve had fish tacos, chicken burritos,and fish burritos, but we haven’t yet had chicken tacos! Paul E. has decided to rectify this situation, and is now strenuously defrosting the chicken, which he will bake, slice, and marinate in two kinds of salsa. The seas are light enough that we will probably fry some tortillas for crispy taco shells. Complemented by cabbage and cheese filling, this dinner will be one to remember.
We are expecting the wind to lighten and come from a more northerly direction this evening. When this happens we will drop the second genoa, and probably set the main and genoa out to starboard.
Our arrival in San Francisco could still be any time from Friday evening to Saturday morning. We are hoping for a daylight arrival, but for that to happen we need to sail faster or slower than seems likely. Tinight and tomorrow will probably be light-air days, so our performance in the next 24 hours will likely be the deciding factor.
Now (4:30PM PDT) our position is latitude 39deg 00min N, longitude 129deg 29min W. We are sailing on a course of 80 degrees magnetic at a speed of 6 knots. Winds are 15 knots from the northwest.
-Paul

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 a cold front, so there was frequent light rain, and occasional moderate rain. When dawn broke, we took it on faith that the sun was up, since the sky was completely overcast. We spent the morning sleeping, talking, and sailing.
In the afternoon the sun broke through and set the seas sparkling. The wind has been slowly dropping, so we eventually set the second genoa, this time using the end of the boom to hold out the jibsheet, allowing both sails to remain filled as the boat yawed in the increasing seas. These two sails give us a faster and more comfortable ride than does the single genoa. This is also a very photogenic configuration, so we got our cameras out and snapped away.
Our current position (time: 5:56PM PDT) is latitude 38deg 57min north, longitude 132deg 39min north. Our speed is about 7 kts, and our course is 075 degrees magnetic. This has us pointing at Jenner, California, and we are about 416 nautical miles due west of Point Arena. The Golden Gate Bridge is 482 miles distant.
A Saturday arrival seems likely, but there is more light air ahead so we will keep updating our ETA as we appoach port.
-Paul

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 deserves mention: The two Pauls prepared a pot roast, using some pre-cooked beefalong with a mixture of spices, potatoes, onions, carrots, and celery, all cooked in a french onion soup base. This was a great meal to have in the now-cool evening.
Early this morning, just after the midnight Pacific Cup Return (radio) Net for which we perform the net-control duties, we had a call on our satellite phone from the Coast Guard at Alamed, to inquire about an activated PLB (Personal Locator Beacon). One of the emergency beacons in our lifevests had been triggered! After a quick headcount verified that all hands were still on-board, we tracked down the offending unit and disabled it br wrapping it in aluminum foil. While this was a nusance for the Coast Guard, they handled it with courtesy and professionalism. It is good to know that the system works!
Today we hauled out the spare genoa, and rigged things for a twin-headsail configuration. Of course once we started working on deck it started pouring heavy rain and the wind really picked up. Finally things calmed down and we set our repaired whisker pole to port, holding out the primary genoa. The repair promptly gave out, and the pole is once again a short one. It is still useful, but I have plans for a better repair job once we take the pole down.
We then hoisted the spare genoa,one sail to port and the other to starboard, and it definitely adds to boat speed. Since we don’t have a pole for each sail it requires careful steering to keep the sails filled, but it sure is nice to look at! We will drop the second sail before it gets dark.
Aaron is now serving salad and spaghetti for dinner – another good meal as the nights grow cold here in the Pacific.
Our position now (6:50PM PDT) is 38deg 10min N, 136deg 10min W, and we are sailing downwind at 8 knots on a course of 060deg magnetic. The wind is blowing at 18 kts. We are 646 nautical miles from the Golden Gate Bridge, and we are due west of the coastline between Stewart’s Point and Point Arena. An arrival this coming weekend is looking likely.
-Paul

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 largely sunny day, with scattered fluffy cumulus clouds casting the occasional shadow. Today was used for bathing (salt water wash, fresh water rince), washing clothes (salt, fresh), and lounging about the cockpit. Early this morning Paul C. noticed some serious chafe developing on one of the monitor windvane control lines (Paul E. swears it wasn’t there yesterday!), so we removed the bad section of line and re-rigged some blocks (pullys) so the likely chafe point was no longer a factor.
Our solar panel can’t quite keep up with our power consumption, so the batteries have been slowly discharging. Today they got to the point where we decided to run the engine to put some juice back into them. We’re not racing so we engaged the prop, but only got about a half-knot boost. The wind should be getting lighter by tomorrow, so we will probably be doing some motorsailing again.
We are getting close enough that we can begin to estimate our arrival in port. If things go as forecast, we may be home on six or seven days. There’s still a lot of sailing to do between now and then, though!
-Paul

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 was dry enough to cast off, and it now bobs on the vast ocean, eventually to wash up on some distant shore.
Thw wind continues to be favorable, and we are sailing home at about 7-8 kts. We jibed yesterday (or was it the day before?), and the only sail change is the occasional reefing or unreefing of our genoa as the winds pick up or drop off occasionally.
The sun has set in the mostly-cloudy sky, and we prepare for our evening watches. It is getting cooler, and we no longer stand night watch in our shorts and t-shirts. A fleece blanket is now appropriate when we try to sleep. Farewell tropics, hello San Francisco! 918 miles to go!
-Paul

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 around 20 kts. We opened a bottle of 2006 Fume Blanc wine from the Dry Creek Vinyards(because it had a sailboat on the label. After offering a glass to the Pacific Ocean, we toasted each other with gratitude for the voyage so far and wishes for a safe completion. This is an adventure that not many people get to experience, and we appreciate this opportunity.
Last night the big event had to be the chicken “enchilada” dinner, prepared by Paul E. As I said, not much happened yesterday.
Early this morning (1:57AM PDT) we picked up the cargo ship “Green Dale” on our AIS. We were in no danger of colliding, but we did contact them on our VHF to say hello. We ended up chatting with Charlie on their bridge for several minutes. Green Dale was heading to Pusan, but she does not have a regular schedule. Instead she travels where her cargo takes her.
Today we did some maintenance. We secured the whisker pole so it is now a functional fixed-length pole (the extensin hardware had broken). This is now ready to use should we find ourselves sailing deep downwind. We also discovered that a batten pocket on our mainsail had chafed through. Rather than attempt to repair the pocket, we elected to remove the batten.
We detected another ship on our AIS receiver, the “HS Bizet” heading for New York (through the Panama Canal, we suppose). She never got closer than 15 miles, too far to be seen visually.
Paul C. is now preparing Mahi-mahi tacos for dinner, with a cabbage salad on the side, and it is starting to smell pretty great.
-Paul E.

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 and waves, but there was no collision danger and this is the first ship we have passes since Aug 9.
* At 6:40AM our AIS receiver detected another ship, this one we could eventually see as we were on a close crossing path. We altered course slightly and passed behind her stern at a distance of about two miles. Her name was “Setsu”, she was a small freighter heading towards Kobe, Japan.
* We watched several albatross (albatrosses?) fly gracefully near our boat. These large dark birds effortlessly glide inches over the waves, and other times soar high overhead.
* We accidentally dropped one of our floating emergency strobelights over the side, so we used the opportunity to perform a Man Overboard drill. We did manage to reover the blinking strobe, and it only took a few minutes. Still, none of us are volunteering to be the next recovery victim.
*Paul E. (me) spent a couple of hours repairing the lufftape at the top of the mainsail (where it attaches to the mast). I wasn’t at the top of the mast though, we had the sail furled and on the boom when the repairs were being made.The repair may hold, or it may not. We don’t intend to test it in high winds, and most of our remaining sailing can be done with headsails alone (as we have been doing for the last 24-hours).
Our current position (as of 6:15 PM PDT) is lat 36deg 03min N, lon 148deg 45min W. This puts us about 1000 miles north of Oahu, and about 1300 miles west of Lopez Point (north of San Simeon). We are sailing at about 6-1/2 kts on a course of 50 deg magnetic. This course has us pointing at Gold Beach, Oregon, but we intend to turn south at about the latitude of Mendocino. The seas are moderate and the winds are about 20 kts from the south.
We haven’t had any major feasts in the last few days; just lazy I guess.
-Paul