We are 978 miles away from Honolulu and looking forward to seeing land soon. Azure is holding on to first place, but we are heading into a zone of light air, so things will start to get interesting over the next few days. We have been seeing more and more debris from Japan as we get closer to the center of the ocean. RJ was able to get a really nice glass fishing ball during our last crossing. We see lots of fishing balls, but we are sailing by them at 8 knots, so no time to grab anything.

We crossed the halfway point of the race so we celebrated by having our halfway party with guest of honor Jim Vickers. We searched high and low for that island with the bar, but settled on having it on the boat. Tony was the master of ceremonies and we toasted the crossing with a nice magnum of champagne. Jim was a sport wearing only a coconut bra and grass skirt as he demonstrated his finest hula while surfing down waves. He is looking forward to sharing his new outfit with Jen.

Just before dinner we noticed a small tear in our Teddy Womper (spinnaker), so we quickly did a peal to get it down and make some repairs. It is our fastest spinnaker, so we need to get it back up as soon as possible. We are constantly looking for chafe or signs of wear. Two weeks of sailing takes its toll on everything.

I really like our night watches in the middle of the ocean. I will start with Jim at midnight, where we ponder everything from black holes to atomic clocks. Did you know there are two types of atomic clocks?. Then I have my shift with Tony where we talk about the finer arts of chemistry and glue. Tony really knows his glue.

So there were four guys who sailed across the ocean blue, an Engineer, Physicist, Chemist, and retired guy.... I need a good punch line.