Crewmember Ben reporting in! The last 24 hours have been great. Everyone seems to be settling into their routines and everything seems to be humming along.

We finally put some sails up! We set the jib on the whisker pole for a downwind run, and rigged the Monitor self-steering windvane (nicknamed "Ginger"). Ginger performed admirably, keeping us on track in 12-14 knots of breeze on the quarter with 4-6 foot following swells.

We had initially planned to stop in at Newport for fuel (there was a fair amount of motoring early on in the trip) but decided to press on for Coos Bay for a few reasons. First, when we arrived at the Newport entrance the tides were unfavorable for crossing the bar and we would have needed to wait for a few hours. Second, we had enough fuel and a good weather window to get to the next possible stop down the coast: Coos Bay.

Of course, Coos Bay also has a tide-dependent entrance. We needed to make fairly good time over the next 24 hours to hit our window and we made it (just barely!) through a combination of motoring, motorsailing, and thoughtful route planning. The final entrance was a bit tricky--we joined the queue of local fishing boats headed for the harbor and had to dodge a giant dredge that was actively dredging across the entrance channel.

On board morale is running high--we are onto our second page of crossword puzzles, see whales on just about every watch, and are eating like kings. Everyone is looking forward to topping off fuel and water (and perhaps grabbing a cheeseburger) before we continue the adventure.