Welcome to day 6 of the Transpac race sailing onboard Passion.

We left off before lunch yesterday and it was a wonderful lunch with fresh fruit and whole wheat with ham with either Swiss or cheddar cheese cooked in a hot pan with a little butter on it to brown the bread a very delicious meal. Dinner was a fresh spinach salad with sliced red peppers and onions the main course included stuffed pasta shells filled with alfredo crab meat sauce and a slice of soda bread

Suzie is also performing magic by making ice when we charge the batteries and make water. I think we might be in for another surprise.

The weather is starting to warm up last night most of the crew lost the fleece and just donned their foul weather gear. We are still in 62 degree water. With the wind aft we have lost some of the chill due to apparent wind. It will be a couple of more days before we are losing the foul weather tops then two more before we get down to shorts and t-shirts. The overcast weather has limited the view of the moon at night and kept the sun off of us during the day. We did see more of the moon last night and it was nice to sail with some light at night. We still wear sunscreen and are drinking lots of water.

We have the � A kite up and at 7 AM on Monday we added the staysail to the mix. The first one over 12 knots was Jim he hit 12.4. Second on the 12 knot board was Bill also at 12.4. We have 12 to 17 Knots of WS from 0 to 40 degrees. We are able to maintain a heading of between 215 to 240 depending on the wind speed and direction. We are in our fast forward mode. Sail the boat wherever you can go 10 knots. We have set a waypoint we would like to get to of 24N and 135W while we have the current wind angle. Our thought behind this is the grib files are always 20 to 50 degrees to the right of what we experience and a couple of knots low. It will also allow us to close with the boats to our south. With the tracking devices we are able to see our strategy is the same as our competition. It appears that the boats farther south are in a couple of knots more wind and are able to maintain a � knot more speed . We are still trying to soak down in front of them.

That was till 4AM when we thought we caught something on the keel. We dropped the chute and turned head to wind to back down and lose whatever it was. Did not completely lose it and were a little sluggish the rest of the watch . The next watch felt like they got rid of it and we are now blasting along with the � A kite up and 18 to 22 knots of wind bouncing around 11 to 14 knots, Passions does enjoy the downwind ride and the long Pacific swell.

Well after I woke up and wrote most of today's news I went on deck in shorts and a t-shirt and realized that I will still need the follies, it is still cool on deck. Before I could get back down below Will jumped the record speed for the race up to 15.4 at 9:45 AM 7/7/9. Wait there is more news, at 9:59 AM will recorded the first broach of the race, it was a doozie. Blew out the staysail and move some of the can good from the open cupboard where yours truly was standing preparing my breakfast. I was fast enough to catch the can goods and save my toes. All is back to normal on board. Now Mark has raised the daily record bar to 15.8 kt boat speed and with 24kt TWS we are considering changing to the 1.5 oz kite.

Got some bad news on the 6AM roll call we are down to 4th in class and 31st in fleet. We are the second most west boat and still need to soak down to the boats to the south. According to the routing software we still have 5 days to make that happen,

Down below is still in good shape, with all the sails stacked on the weather rail we have room to move around. The boat is very dry now and we have not had to bail in over 24 hours and looking down at my feet we will not have to any time soon.

Personal and boat hygiene is being taken care of. A couple of the guys took advantage of the hot water heater and took a deck shower yesterday. The beards are showing some nice growth with more grey than I remember from the last race. Guess that is what happens as you get older.

Carter's I pod has replaced the radio margaritaville. The young man has a very nice selection of tunes. Some of I have even heard. So the tunes are going 24/7 we sometimes turn them down when we are trying to perform a sail change.

We still have 1450 miles to go this morning and the routing software says it will take 5+ days so we are looking for a late Sunday or early Monday finish. Wow only 5 days away.

Later, and still waiting to see the full moon over the Pacific, signing off from the SV Passion located at 24.5. N and 131.5W only 1450 miles from Hawaii (getting closer every day)