June 27 16 days at Sea Seattle to Hawaii on Mist Passages are interesting beasts. You love them then you hate them, never at the same time and usually, at the extreme. As Hal Roth once wrote "cruising has the highest highs and lowest lows". Hal Roth was a cruising sailor/author. He and his wife Margaret circumnavigated several times on their 35' Spencer called Whisper. He wrote several amazing books about his adventures before passing away a few years ago. He was in his mid 80's. We had the pleasure of meeting Hal and Margaret just after they completed they're last book together. A couple of Hal's books are 'Two against Cape Horn' and 'Two on a Big Ocean'. Both books are on board Mist and we have read them several times prior to cruising ourselves.

Last night was a rolly miserable night and no sleep was to be had on Mist. We were sailing downwind with swells coming at us from different directions. The boat had an uncomfortable motion for hours and with the wind at our backs, we hated life. "Bash, bang, boom" is this a Batman cartoon? Anyway the night passed and the sun came out the following morning and we had made enough westing to jibe. With that jibe the motion improved and we were once again a happy crew.

I saw a few more flying fish yesterday and one suicidal squid that landed on the deck. No dolphins, no whales, and nothing seen from the under our boat belly. The weather is getting hotter, stickier and the air is feeling heavy. As we approach the lower latitudes of 25 24, 23 then down to 19 .which is the Big Island. I have not seen another albatross, yet was reading about them in my bird book. They are on the endangered species list (aren't we all?!) due to long shore fishing nets and pollution caused by humans (imagine that!). Albatross are said to migrate further than any other animal, often traveling 1000's of miles. Well this guy was proof of this as we spotted him 1200 miles from land on either side of us. He was a happy fellow here all by himself soaring around us for most of the day.

Who's counting?? but we have approximately 650 miles to Hilo... in two days it will be less than 400 miles and before you know it we will be arriving to our destination! After some relaxing weeks in Hawaii we will move on in the direction of Western Samoa