Picture: Captain Ted Berry aboard "Shuang Yu" during the passage from Japan to Alaska, June, 2016. We are approaching Adak, Alaska.

Day 20 position at noon: 50 55.78'N; 179 25.92'E Noon to noon miles: 102 Miles since Mexico: 22,982.

Weather: Foggy and Cloudy (55 F or 13 C). Morning: Wind - West 5 - 8 knots. Boat speed: 2.8 - 3.5 knots Afternoon: Wind - West 8 - 12 knots. Boat speed: 5 - 6 knots (wing on wing) Evening: Wind - West northwest 8 - 9 knots. Boat speed: 4.0 - 4.8 knots

Breakfast: Oatmeal, dried fruit, coconut power, cashews, black bean. Lunch: Seaweed soup with potato and carrot. Dinner: Poached eggs, brown rice and stir fry cabbage, cucumber and smoked chicken. Dessert: Chocolate bar candy (two mini-bars per person). Drink: Coffee, hot and cold water, wheatgrass-lemon-honey water, hot coconut milk with vanilla, honey and cinnamon. Snack: Whole wheat crackers, peanut butter, dried fish and squid, granola bar, peanuts and Japanese crunchy bars.

I bought several packages of pre-cooked beans from a grocery store called "Otsuki-Foods From All The World" in Hakodate, Hokkaido. It is an excellent store for stocking up for the passage to Alaska. They have powered milk, coconut milk, nuts of various kinds, dried fruit, dried squid and so on. Anyway, I thought pre-cooked packaged beans would be convenience. It turned out the beans are sweet. I had a suspicion that might be the case because the Japanese use beans as a sweet filing for desserts, such as mochi (a Japanese dessert that is made from glutinous rice flour with a sweet bean filling). They also use a sweet bean paste for pancake filling and so on. When I put the sweet black beans in a meat and quinoa dish a few days ago, it added a unique taste, but I did not want to use it as a main dish. Instead, I found a better way to use the beans by adding them to hot cereal in the morning. They added a little sweetness and extra fiber to the oatmeal. I am familiar with sweet bean paste because Chinese people use it for making moon cakes and other desserts. As matter of fact, my cousin in San Francisco made large quantity and sold them to Chinese bakeries. I bought a few packages of the sweet beans, so I will see if I can find a recipe to make mochi as it is one of our favorite Japanese desserts.

The wind is directly behind us again, which is terrific; however, it has decreased. We want to optimize it so we hoisted the main sail and pushed it to the port (left) side while leaving the genoa poled out on the starboard (right side); it is called a "wing to wing" configuration. With both the main sail and the genoa out like that, all possible wind is utilized. The ride is relatively smooth because the boat is balanced. The disadvantage of the "wing on wing" configuration is the wind has to come from behind and not an excessive amount. We cannot change course much because the wind has to come within 20 degrees of directly behind us. We had a good ten hour run like that and traveled quite a distance. All the trouble of setting it up was worth it. We have a relatively old-fashioned boat which does not have in-mast or in-boom furling. In-mast furling means the sail rolls up inside the mast and comes out quite easily. In-boom furling is the same concept except that the sail is rolled up inside the boom. With either mast or boom furling the crew do not have to go out on deck and manually attach the halyard (the rope) to the sail in order to hoist it up using a hand or electric winch. Putting up the main is pure physical exercise especially for Ted. He also has to put a "preventer" on the main sail so it will stay secure. Imagine this scene: the wind is blowing quite strong and the swell is high. Ted is out on deck shouting orders at me like, "Faster, faster" or "More, more, more" or "Let go the boom". All the time the wind is howling and the waves are bashing. At these times, I think about some dangerous ocean voyage scenes in the movies that I have seen. What are two senior citizens doing in a stormy sea performing action scenes that nobody will ever watch? Crazy!

By the way, we crossed into the western hemisphere from the eastern hemisphere today, a big milestone!