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