Report from VALIS – Aug 30/31

Greetings from VALIS and its happy crew. As of 10:00 PM we are at latitude 38 deg 23 min north, longitude 152 deg 22 min west. We are sailing northeast at about seven knots. Winds are from the southeast at 18 knots, and seas are from the southeast at 3 ft.

Last night we had steady winds, but as the sky lightened the winds began to fall a bit. Once the sun was up we poled out the jib to keep it full as we rolled in the swells. Later on today the wind picked up again and we are making good time, although the ride is somewhat rolling.

Today we read, rested, and practiced tying fancy knots. Tonight’s dinner was spaghetti with sausage added to the sauce. Tonight’s movie will be “Farenheit 451″ (last knight we watched “Donnie Darko”, and the night before we watched “Barton Fink”). We don’t watch movies *every* night, though.

Since the skies are overcasr and drizzling tonight, in addition to our regular man on watch, we are running the radar in “timed tracsmit, watch circle” mode. This means that every ten minutes the radar makes a few scans and starts beeping if it sees anything in a ten-mile radius. We are well out of the shipping lanes now, but we want to be careful.

Best wishes,
Daniel, Jim, Paul, Paul.