Hi Friends of Polar Mist!

Polar Mist left Ventura harbor on schedule around noon on Sunday, June 16. We had waited until afternoon because in the two weeks I was there, a nice northerly always filled in after mid-day. Instead, we were surprised to find a light southwesterly blowing (putting the wind right on our nose). We took a tack to the Northwest as soon as we cleared the channel and then tacked back to the south�--heading as much to the west as we could.

The wind gradually built and slowly shifted to the north�--our boatspeed slowly climbed. In the middle of the night, we tucked the 2nd reef in the main and Polar Mist took off and hasn�'t looked back since. That reef stayed in for 4 days as we flew along at up to 11 kts of boatspeed in top gusts of 30 kts!

In planning the trip, we had hoped for at least one 200 nautical mile day�--in five days, we have had runs of 198, 215, 205, 206 and 191! The winds moderated during the night last night�--we shook out the reef in the main yesterday and seas are moderating as we sail on towards Honolulu in lighter winds.

As of today, around 1400 miles lie ahead of us with around 1000 miles behind us. We are off to a great start and the pace onboard is relaxing a bit as the wind moderates. Our boatspeed has dropped from an average of 8.5 kts to about 6 kts as the wind has moved behind us at about 15 kts.

All is well aboard�--no major mechanical problems, no issues with sea sickness (even with the rough weather), and Starr has been feeding us well! We get daily visits from albatross and frigate birds, each morning we clean a small navy of squid off the deck (deposited from the waves which have been breaking on the bow) and we are waiting for the first keeper on our fishing line. (We would have liked to seen the monster that broke off our 100# test leader the first day we put the line out!)

We hope all is well with you and look forward to catching up with everybody when we get into Honolulu in early July!