Picture: Ted is pulling the kelp out from under the boat.

Position at noon: 56 32.74'N; 153 43.07'W Noon to noon miles: 120 Miles since Mexico: 23,972

Weather: Sunny! (60 F or 15.5 C). Morning: Wind - East (nearly headwind) 11-13 knots. Boat speed with motor: 3.5 - 4.5 knots. Afternoon: Wind - Northwest 10-18 knots. Boat speed with genoa poled out: 5.5 - 6.5 knots. Evening: Wind - Southwest 16-25 knots. Boat speed: 5.5 - 7.4 knots.

Breakfast: Egg omelet with bacon, onion, bell pepper, celery, and kale. Lunch: Refried beans, rice and stir fried cabbage. Dinner: Salmon soup with potato, celery, bell pepper, onion and milk powder. Dessert: Grahams crackers with peanut butter and salmonberry jam. Drink: Coffee, hot and cold water with lime juice, wheatgrass-lemon-honey water, hot co-conut milk with vanilla, cinnamon and honey. Snack: Grahams crackers with peanut butter, jerky, dried squid, granola bar, chocolate, dried apple, peanuts and Japanese crunchy snacks.

The wind changed throughout the day. In the morning we had a headwind and we motored to make headway. Then it started to change to northwest and finally to southwest. Either one of those directions was a good sailing wind for us. When we have sailable wind, everything seems calmer and quieter. Most of all, we did not have to worry about running into seaweed so we did not have to look ahead intensively to avoid it. However, later we found out that we still gathered large piles of the seaweed on our wing keel. When we were under sail, the seaweed did not stop the boat but once we turned the motor on, we noticed the boat could not go any faster than three knots. Worse yet, sometimes we could not move at all. It happened when we turned from the open sea into the Sitkalidak Passage, a narrow winding shortcut waterway between the east coast of Kodiak Island and Sitkalidak Island. Anyway, we noticed a strange noise from the propeller so we stopped the engine immediately. Long snake-like stalks of kelp started to float up behind from underneath the boat. Quickly Ted got the boathook and fished one big one partly out of the water and then pulled it to the bow for later release. We could not get to all of them that way so we put the boat into reverse. Slowly as she was backing up, an enormous pile of kelp, with roots, surfaced. We breathed a sigh of relief and continued our journey.

Sailing through the Sitkalidak Passage was interesting because sometimes we were sheltered by the islands so the wind would die down to nothing. On the other hand, passing the ends of val-leys or fiords which are surrounded by tall mountains, the wind would gust up to 25 knots or more. Evidently the wind is deflected around tall mountains and channeled through valleys or fiords to create squalls called "williwaws". We were considering anchoring in one of those fiords called Three Saints, but the wind speed changed our mind so we went directly to Old Harbor.

The channel to Old Harbor is narrow but it has red and green buoys and the sun was still up even though it was 22:00. The harbor master welcomed us and told us we could stay as long as we want. We had a good feeling about this place already.