Scott
05/29/2012, 915 miles off California

Sean and Ron decided it's my turn to write another blog entry. Partly because they have been writing most of them, but also because they can't think of anything to write either.

The last few days have been pretty mellow. We've been sailing with the wind behind us for the past 9 hours or so, which has been generally nice. Hopefully this pattern continues and blows us right into the bay. It's not super comfortable, as the swell is coming at us both from astern and abeam. The beam swells give us a nice big roll every minute or so - people, food, and dishes flying across the cabin each time (just kidding on the dishes, Kathy).

Sean, as usual, has been really mean to his crew. Kathy told him that I get to choose movies three nights in a row for the whole engine thing, but Sean refuses to let either Ron or I pick any movies anymore. He claims he's asserting his captain's prerogative. I think tonite will be the 5th night in a row that we "get" to watch the Buster Keaton silent film classic "The General". Just kidding, it's really only the 3rd night in a row.

It's gotten much colder the last few days, in a continuing progression of increasing clothing since leaving Hawaii - going from shorts and t-shirts to sweats and windbreakers. We don't have much further north to go, so hoping we won't be getting out the foulies. At least now that we have broken free from the grip of the Pacific High we are no longer having nightly squalls. It's been mostly overcast, with the sun making an appearance from time to time. In the past couple of hours the temperature has really plummeted and everyone is discussing whether we are at longjohn latitude.

The miracle water tank of plenty, which has been registered on the gauges as EMPTY for the past four days finally did run dry. We switched to another tank which I suspect will will run dry in about a day in order to keep the cosmic balance.

During last night's movie we saw miles left to go on the GPS drop from "1000" to "999". Sean said something witty, like "yay...". We've turned the corner and are finally on the backside of the trip...

Well, it's time for the daily floggings administered by our illustrious skipper. So far morale is not improving, so I guess they will continue for now. Ron and I were plotting mutiny, but Sean hid all the markers so we couldn't give him a black spot.

That's all from S/V Adventure for today!

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Sean
05/28/2012, Past halfway between Hawaii and SF

Last night in a total act of selfishness I ate the last two cupcakes in front of my crew. This was done mainly as a display of total superiority. Sure they said that it didn't matter - they had their fancy Snickers bars - but I knew they were jealous.

Scott's been all full of himself since he fixed the engine. Every time you ask him to do something he replies, "Who fixed the engine? Who? Who?..." Its been really annoying. I checked the oil today to show him that he doesn't know everything. I made a big show of it. "It looks to be about half full!" I yelled in full confidence. Scott looked threatened.

Ron continues to rattle off various weather statistics that often sound quite sophisticated. Unfortunately, despite all the analysis, we still have no wind. Ron claims that if we were 200 miles north of our current location we'd have lots of wind. The curious part is that the wind is always 200 miles away.

We're still running under motor and have had many debates of trying to actually determine how much fuel we actually have. All the fuel tank sending units are bad so we're just guessing. Fortunately, I've watched every episode of Star Trek (TOS) and know that as captain all I need to do is say, "Scotty we need more power or we're all dead!"

We think we have about 50 gallons of water left but we've been drawing from our main tank for the last 3 days. This is somewhat miraculous since its gauge has read empty for the last 3 days. I checked it visually yesterday and it is indeed mostly empty, but it still gives us water.

Otherwise all is well. The crew listened to a podcast of This American Life yesterday on the subject of how to survive being a hostage.

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Ron
05/27/2012, Past halfway between Hawaii and SF

We shut down the motor around 4am this morning (at the start of my shift) and have been sailing all day. We are still heading into the wind. The forecast says it is supposed to change and be behind us tomorrow, but they've been wrong a lot. We spent some time coming up with what GRIBs stand for (these are the weather reports we get). Sean came up with "Generally Really Inaccurate BS".

It's cloudier, a bit colder, and there is a nice gentle breeze. Those of you praying for wind please stop immediately, we have enough now :-)

We are now on a course directly toward the Golden Gate (great circle still, so we will go a little further north).

Other than an overload on the genoa furler, things are working pretty well. Sean climbed up on the foredeck and cleared that this morning We had to head downwind during the repair process, but that didn't affect our position too much. We are in good shape on water, food, and fuel. Other than being a little tired, everyone is in good shape.

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