July 14

HI to ALL
Current position at 09:00 PDT is Lat N 33deg 08min, Lon W 126deg 03min

You can follow our position on the internet www.optitecture.com and clicking on position report and other links. Don’t worry if you don’t see our reports, though. There seems to be a problem with the way we are reporting, but we hope to have this debugged soon. Try “yotreps” first.

We crossed under the GG Bridge on 7/12 at 13:47 hours, under reefed main and staysl. Spent the next half-hour tacking out the channel, then turned through the south channel. The wind dropped to 12 kts, and we hoisted jib, put up full main. Light to medium fog first night, ran radar watches through the night. Wind picked up during night, reefed main to first batten, reefed jib.

Seeing lots of the jelly fish with the small translucent sail sticking above the water’s surface. So plentiful, a few washed up on deck. Crew is getting their sea legs.

7/13 — Wind strong all day, 20-25 kts. Medium swells, whitecaps everywhere. Seas a bit confused, but fairly comfortable with wind and swells slightly aft of the stbd beam. Sailing with reefed jib full stay’sl, and double-reefed main, we hit 10.8 kts (water) which is a new
record for VALIS. Average SOG 8 kts. Beautiful full-moon all night, clear skies. Day was sunny and nights are getting warmer.

Andrew was served breakfast (one of Jim’s scallion and cheddar cheese omelets) in bed this morning as he had the last night watch. We had a great chicken curry on a bed of white rice last night for dinner. Since it was blowing 25 kts. so we opted to eat it in bowls so most of it would get to our mouth.

At dusk Dan spotted what he though was the first boat out here even if it did turn out to be a rising moon on the horizon. Jim was listening to some 300 Beatles songs during his 11 to 2 watch.

7/14 — wind starting out at 20kts, seas smaller than yesterday. We are steering about 200 deg mag, which should take us below the Pacific High (monitoring it daily via email and wfax).

Best to all from the crew of VALIS, Paul, Andrew, Dan and Jim