Big Red
26 July 2016 | 400 miles West of Washington
Gavin
Today we had a picturesque day of spinnaker sailing. We put up "big red" shortly after breakfast and have had it full and pulling us along at 6.5 knots + all day long. Most of the morning it was sunny and warm(-ish) with some clouds moving in by the afternoon. Right now it is kind of a race against the clock to get ahead of these stronger winds that are supposedly building closer to Washington. We are damn close now to the end of the journey and depending on how the next few days go, this may be my last blog post. I expect there will be a lot of questions when I get home about the trip and what it was like, and I thought I would use this opportunity to describe some of it _Best Part of the Trip_: Aside from surfing some great warm water breaks I would say it was the "champagne sailing" days where the sun was out, the wind was light and the boat was moving fast. _Worst Part of the Trip_: Going for multiple nights in a row on little sleep in bad weather. That being said, it does make the passages feel more rewarding if you gotta fight through some nastiness, but I could just as easily do with more of the "champagne sailing". _Most Important Part to Me_: This might be different than what you were expecting. But as I have had a lot of time to think about it, I have decided that my favorite and most important part of this trip was standing night watch... for multiple reasons. To start, it was cool being in charge of the boat and having the responsibility of ensuring that everything was well. Secondly, It was beautiful. There have been so many nights where I could look up and see thousands upon thousands of stars, or look down in the water and see the boat leaving a glowing phosphorescent wake behind us. Getting to just sit back, relax with a warm drink, good music, and soak it all in without having to worry about being anywhere particular the following day is a great feeling and very special I think. Lastly, it really gives you time to think about yourself and reflect. Sappy I know, but its true. Having lived with others for my whole life, always with friends or family, I have often wondered how much of my personality is based on my interactions with those people. Not that that is a bad thing, but being alone on the night watch, halfway around the world from friends and family (Dad and Wendy excluded), sometimes hundreds of miles from the nearest civilization, you can get a pretty damn unique feeling of solitude and peace of mind. Didn't mean to get too introspective here, but hopefully you get the point. Anyways, it is almost the end now with just a few days left before we get to the straights of Juan de Fuca. We are haulin ass, and with any luck it will be "land ho" here pretty soon. -Gavin