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.