Rose and I are trying desperately to reach the East side of Oahu so as to conserve my meager fuel supply. Luckily, we have had wonderful sun shine the last 2 days allowing my solar panels to perform for the first time in three weeks. 240 nm to go to Ala Wai yacht harbor. We have been slogging through 3 m seas and 20 k winds coming from the East for the last 24 hrs. What happened to our steady NE trades we were counting on? Anyway, all is well, I've been conserving fuel by turning off the frig Bad thing is I've had to throw out 15 lbs of good tuna. Warm beer not so bad thank goodness. As for food, I cooked up 2 lbs of hamburger to slow down it's demise. Today I ate a 3/4 lb burger on my wonderful spice bread. No more fresh fruits or veggies so I combined baked beans corn and peas and fish and boiled up some spaghetti . Bad idea- don't try that. I cooked them all together to save on dirty dishes. Rose is holding up well despite all the rocking and rolling and now the bucking bronco part. Can't wait to get to Honolulu and see Nick and Michelle and my pretty wife.

Rose and I were becalmed last evening, so Taking Richard on Jazz's advice I furled the sails and went back to lie down in the MBR for the first time since leaving ChiChJima. I tried desperately to get some sleep, but Rose was rocking so violently, it was hopeless. I decided to get up at @0300 HILT to clean out the cloudy fluid from the genset primary and replace the old Racor for the main engine as Lulu had insisted I do . I was shocked to see that just above the clear spin on part where you look for contaminants and water in your filter was this awful nasty brown collection of crap. Funny thing is that now both the genset and the yanmar filters have the exact same cloudy fuel I've been struggling with since the last disastrous attempt to get home. So thanks Lulu - u da bomb! It's 1000 in HI now and I'm still becalmed with 3-4 K wind from the NE and a 1 m swell from the NW. Miraculously, the auto pilot is just able to keep me going at 0.7 K SE so the rocking isn't so bad now. See you guys in a couple weeks if this keeps up. heading 128 T 760 nm to go.

Had a nice day of sailing today despite being overcast and rainy. Tonight the wind pooped out and then clocked around rapidly from Sw to SE so now it's right on my nose. I needed to run the generator to charge the batteries but got the bright idea that since there was no wind I could just charge the batteries with the main engine and make some forward progress at the same time. Well , LuLu must have been watching because shortly after starting the engine and getting up to 4.5 K I noticed that the batteries weren't charging. Panic set in as I raced about trying to figure out what was wrong. I'm leaning over the hot engine trying to see if the alternator wires are loose or if some circuit needed to be reset or perhaps the battery switch was acting up again. In the process, I managed to briefly shut off the power to the chart plotter which then erased many of my waypoints. Luckily, I had only to stop and restart the engine like you would your computer to get the alternator back on line you can see the implications of the main engine not charging the batteries. Egad and little fishes as mom would say. Fortunately I didn't have a heart attack, but I did get angry enough to throw my old boots overboard when the sole came off one in the middle of all this mess. Stay tuned for more fun stuff that is surely to come.

The old iphone with all the nice oldies died. The ipod with millions of songs and audiobooks with lectures of medieval Europe I was listening to conked out. My less old iphone with only a few songs is hanging on for dear life. It runs for a couple hours, then battery suddenly goes dead without warning. But, not to worry, my computer doesn't have any music or books, but I have lots of CME(continuing medical education ) articles like labor induction and urinary tract injury to keep me occupied. Anyway, I was listening to the Little River Band song for the thousandth time, you know the one about the "cool change" where he likes sailing alone and stares at the full moon like a lover . I couldn't help but laugh. I've had a full moon now for the last few days and only got a quick glimpse at it a couple of times . we've had near 100% clouds for days now. Today its really nice now. we're screaming along wing on wing 6 k .Hope you got to see more of the full moon than I did. No wonder it's been raining so much on Maui with all this moisture in the air.

Yeah! after 48+hours of 100% clouds and a hidden full moon, the sky is clear and the sun is shining. Praise the lord! Rose and I have been tolerating a long line of little squalls one row after another every few minutes with brief windows in between so the wind could die out and get the boat rocking away in the nice swells. Glad to have that behind us. Lulu finally convinced me to consolidate my huge tuna supply out of the freezer into the frig. The freezer thermostat doesn't work so it runs constantly. It freezes great but at great cost in battery power .I just hope the tuna can last a while. Hate to lose all that yummy stuff. Well, stay tuned- I have to go make another tuna marinade.

After 36 hours of a slow nearly windless grind rocking about, Compass Rose is moving again. We have 10 k out of west headed almost due East. heading 080 T and speed 5.5 K don't know why sailblogs doesn't switch those. Made an awesome pan of cookies yesterday( Lulu's special chocolate chip walnut cookie bars) only used almonds and had to chop up a dark chocolate bar since they don't have chocolATE CHIPS IN CHICHIJIMA- CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? When I grow up I am going to learn how to type. Then Rose and I made an awesome marinade and cooked a big pile of tuna- had to substitute saki for marin, but still turned out oishikatta. Thats delicious for you nonspeakers. The adventure continues-stay tuned.