Yesssss....

The ahi is the big news of the last 24 hours, and it couldn't have come at a better time. It's chilling in the fridge alongside the ceviche Vince made yesterday.

We're sailing now while the 9 knots of breeze from the SE lasts. Otto (Otto Helm) is steering at the moment, though Ray (Ray Marine) got his chance to steer under sail for about 2 hours between 4:00 and 6:00 this morning. Is it clear to everyone that Otto (Otto Helm) is the Cap(e) Horn windvane and Ray (Ray Marine) is the electric autopilot? We're finally approaching our collision with the high as it's tightening and moving toward us. The expectation is that this wind will die as we hit the dead center, and then we'll start to see the NE/N winds that we'll ride East to SanFran. I'm estimating it'll take us about a day to get from here to the new wind.

We topped off both tanks yesterday and I'm pleased to report that we've averaged about 0.5 gal per hour, as compared to the 1 gal/hour I was guestimating. That's roughly 10 miles to the gallon! So we may arrive with seven 5-gallon jerry cans hiking on the port rail. But there's a lot of water between here and there, including a light patch about 2/3 of the way to the Bay, so we'll see. Suffice it to say I've checked off fuel from my list of concerns.

The bad news: I backed into the bowl of cracked eggs while putting the bacon and home fries in the warming oven, dumping them into the sink. The silver lining is not lost on me in retrospect, that they ended up in the sink and not on me, my one pair of shoes (I'm not Dad, inside joke), the galley, and in the bilge. That would have ruined my whole day!

The best news: we passed halfway at around midnight and we're now solidly below 1000 miles!