We passed the half way point today. We left eight days ago on Saturday West

coast time. Now we have eight days or less depending on the wind direction.

We will try to motor across the high pressure to burn off some of our fuel. We

have used very little so far compared to the Fiji to WSamoa, WSamoa to Xmas and

Xmas to HI. All three times we had to load our capacity with 900 plus liters.

So far this trip the port engine has had the most motoring use, a little with

starboard when there was a squall approaching and mostly Starboard with the

generator. As of this writing we have used just over 100 liters of our 1296.

So now we need to start up the engines and motor across the high ending up at

about 46N 138W where we should pick up some ENE winds to blows us down into the

Columbia River.

The temperature has dropped to the high 70's-lo 80's during the day and low

70's at night. The boys are wearing sweat pants, sweatshirts, socks and fouly

jackets at night. Blankets when they go to bed for a nap day or night. Heck

it isn't even cold yet. Lisa and I are still in our shorts and TShirts in the

day and night. At night, I put on a new light weight hoody and Lisa wears her

light weight jacket if she leaves the Salon.

I tore the Icom M802 HF tansceiver apart today to see if there might have been

some kind of critter or corrosion that made an obvious intrusion into the

workings. Found nothing but did clean it up. R&R'd all the terminals and

connectors while cleaning with contact cleaner. Tried it at the net check in

but no success. Notified Pacseanet I would be checking in via email for the

rest of the voyage.

I could hear Dietmar from Carinthia who is just one degree south of us but 1.5

degrees further east. He has a more northerly course while we are now trying

to make some easting.

The base motor mount on one of the high volume bilge pumps cracked and created

a suction leak in the Port bilge. Pulled and replaced it with an older one as

we don't have a complete spare pump. The little electric automatic Rhule pumps

are worthless. I plan on devising a float type switch that won't get gummed up

and will cause and alarm. If the alarm rings and stays ringing for more than a

set period of time it will then turn on the big bilge pump and run for a set

period of time. It can't be one that turns off when the float switch drops as

it would be constantly going on and off unless you were at anchor or a marina.

Any way tomorrow's task is to disassemble the pump and see if we can fix it so

it can then be used as the spare. After 11 years and this many miles a boat's

accessory systems are usually well worn. That includes all the hoses wether

they be bilge, suction or pressure. It will probably be time for a complete

replacement. It is like nickle and diming a project when you wait to replace

something until afte it is really broken.

Well all for now. Time to chase down the grib files for our bi-daily weather

dose.

John