Today we continue our pursuit of the slippery Pacific High as it slips NW and away from us. There really isn't much else we can do but keep climbing into the higher latitudes looking for the elusive westerlies. The GRIB forecasts show us closing in from the south as evidenced by the softening easterly breeze and rising barometer. Once we penetrate the high, we'll either come out the top or it will move away from us. Regardless, we can't turn east for WA until we find the NW to W breeze. Hopefully, that will be in a day or two.

For now, the sailing is comfortable, but it's getting cold at night. Time to bust out my very nautical Ugg house slippers... Last night, Wendy spotted a ship on the AIS. First boat we've seen in 8 days at sea. Turns out he was on damn near a collision course and took our stern by less than 2 miles. It's a funny big ocean out here and you sometimes see odd things. A friend up ahead of us described a curious whale that kept coming back to his boat to check him out. We've actually had a pilot whale swim between our catamaran hulls for hrs. We have not seen much marine life yet here in the northers ocean, just a few small birds. It is a pleasant surprise that we have not seen much debris in the water. Just an occasional fishing float or bit of plastic, but nothing large or dangerous to a boat zipping along through the night (knock, knock, knock).

At this point I think we're looking at another 10-11 days at sea, but hard to know how the weather will cooperate - stay tuned!

Update: We've just had our own whale visitation. Huge whale, maybe a blue whale? He swam with us for over 1/2hr, sometimes within a 100 ft of the boat. I hope he's got his sonar on...