Best Speed

Well when I went on watch with Malo last night the wind gave us a comfortable point of sail but without

enough wind to give us any real speed. Lisa had left us with a very long squall to deal with. It was

about 25 miles wide and streched all the way across our point of sail. I gave Malo some guidance and

had him furl in the gib to slow us down so it could cross completely in front of us and as it did

another one popped up about another 20 miles further down the layline. I stayed with him and then just

as the first one was nearly passed us I had him go for full power by unfurling the gib completely and

then falling off another 10-15 degrees to set the next squall behind us. When I thought the second one

was in the bag I told him to come back up and point towards our weighpoint some 400 miles further NE

after is passed behind us. I went down in the main salon and fell asleep on the sette. I woke about 2

hours later just before Malo was to wake me. I heard a little rain but no real heavy wind. It had

picked up from 12 to 16 and came from a little further behind us. I relieve him and took over.

Now that we have moved about 5 degrees further East it is getting light earlier. When I went on it was

so light I could see that there was absolutely no weather cells on our horrizon. I went for a full

main and full gib and before I knew it the wind had picked up to 20 knots and we were flying for a

heavy cat. It also meant the bows took some nose dives and so Malo having a V berth on the port side

got very little sleep. Mostely he rolled from side to side and was levitating as the bow went over the

top of one wave and then settled to the trough of the next which slammed him in his bed. As I say not

much sleep, but we did make some good distance today. We averaged about 8.8knots towards our

weighpoint. Best to date on the trip.

Tonight is much calmer. This morning I made some muffins for breakfast and later Today I made some

rotis for our Chicken curry dinner. The rotis were a little tougher than I like but they are all gone

and no complaints.

Charisma is really pointing more in the right direction and is a mere 200 miles behind us. In days

that is about 1.7 days for them so they are doing good. If they keep up the pace they should be able

to hit Victoria about 4-5 days after we hit Astoria. In about 2 days we will be at the middle

lattitude of the North Pacific High and will need one more day to be comfortably north. There might be

a little trouble on the horizon as we get closer to the West coast as there is a gale trough starting

to form just south of Vancouver Island which may have an affect on us. Will keep watching.

We also need to use up some of the fuel we have on board so we may elect to cross the North Pacific

High on a diagonal SW to NE to burn some off. Right now we have about an extra 500 liters on deck we

need to have room for in the tanks.

We are going alot slower tonight but only put in a single reef in the main. The horizon doesn't look

that troublesome so if it shows a different look later, Lisa can wake me to help put another reef in

the main if necessary.

All for now

John