Aloha from VALIS!
Time: 1:48 PM PDT
Position: 35 deg 12 min N, 125 deg 13 min W
Speed: 8.2 kts
Course: 204 deg magnetic
We are truly underway. We finally started our race a day late, crossing the start line at 11:09 PDT. The winds were good, the current favorable, and we crossed the favored end of the line as if we were pros. I suppose having the line all to ourselves may have helped… Anyway, we were under the bridge and out into the pacific within four tacks. Due to the ebb current the seas were up a little, so we stayed in the main channel all the way out.
Once in the Pacific, we turned southwest on our way to the tradewinds. The winds were 20+ knots, up to 30 kts at times, so even with deeply reefed main and genoa we were sailing at 8 to 9 knots (fast, for us). Several hours after our start, we could see the sails of the “Division C” Pacific Cup fleet, who had started 12:10 (an hour after us). We watched them spread out, some going north of us, other south. These are faster boats, and they slowly passed us over the rest of the night and afternoon (we assume they all passed us, but we only saw a few of them).
We split up into two watch teams (Paul and Ville, Daniel and Andrew) and stood 4-hour watches all night. We saw the running lights of several sailboats, many phosphorescent jellyfish(?), and Paul saw one very strange creature that looked like a 15 foot long glowing hose, serpentined on the surface of the water.
In the morning, we participated in the Pacific Cup radio position report, which takes place at 9:00 AM PDT. We are now steering, sleeping, eating, and typing.
Aloha,
Paul, Daniel, Ville, Andrew
I have attached a Google Earth logfile showing our progress to-date — click to open

july5.kmz