DAY 28 - Closer........

Yesterday afternoon was a quiet one of drifting ahull due to lack of wind. I watched an old black and white war movie that was really about friendship. (Wow, was life simple then!) After the movie I went on deck and found that although the wind had not increased much (maybe to 6 kt) the sea had calmed down and better yet the wind had backed to the south, which meant that I had a good shot at carrying the full jib on a beam reach. Soon Pahuca was dawdling along toward Cape Flattery at 3.5 kt. About an hour before sunset I raised the mainsail with one reef. I am generally reluctant to raise the mainsail until I've become pretty sure that the wind has established but I figured that I'd better do it before dark it is really difficult to raise the mainsail in the dark, the problem being that you are not able to see the lazy jacks to make sure that the battens clear them. Anyway, it held up OK and at 5.30 PM Pachuca was sailing down the rhumb line comfortably at 5 kt.

The 7.30 session was excellent. RICHARD WAS TIED UP AT THE DOCK! HE WAS HOME!!! He wound up 55 miles north of his destination and spent a difficult night motoring against a SE headwind. At times he was making only 1 kt SOG. Later the wind changed and he was able to make better headway. He reckons that he made it on the 46th day of the his passage. Fortunately we had the best radio reception in weeks and I was able to speak directly with him for a change. He said that he was using a different antenna. Anyway, he is tied up at a harbor named Ucluelet on the western side of Vancouver Island. It would be great to visit him either on Pachuca or overland. He lives on his boat and expects to be there until the arrival of winter. What a privilege it is to know him. He has lived on that boat since the 1980's and has done the rounds of the Pacific Ocean many times, including the east coast of Australia. The boat has no head, only one battery, a small gen set, a 30-year-old radar, a radar detector, the HF radio, an extremely basic galley; and he plans to replace his mainsail because he seemed to be forever repairing it on his passage from Hawaii. But it is a tough, solid, sea kindly boat with nearly new rigging that can take a pounding from just about anything that nature can throw at it. The boat is well fitted out inside with real solid wood and not the veneers, plastic, and ply wood of modern boats. (He did the fitout himself.) The boat has warmth and soul. A minimalist (by today's standards) boat like that at the hands of someone as experienced and cool as Richard is will be as OK as any cruising boat can be. For the record, we will continue radio sessions on Saturdays and Wednesdays at 0300 UTC on 4149.0 KHz (4B).

At the 9 PM session I mentioned to Chris the possibility of sailing past Neah Bay near the mouth of Juan de Fuca and go directly to Port Townsend. His advice was to spend a day or two at Neah Bay for some R&R and to better prepare for the sail to Port Townsend. He said that besides, it is a beautiful place to visit. He was right. Rather than push my luck after a 2200 mile solo passage I will anchor at Neah Bay, rest, enjoy a visit to the shore, get some local advice, and leave at the optimal time on the 60-mile leg to Port Townsend. It is most important that I arrive there in daylight. Wouldn't it be nice to enjoy the sail to Port Townsend as a recreational adventure rather than something to be endured as last hurdle to be overcome.

Ryan on Sonrisa was moving well after having motored almost 24 hours. Don had told him to expect poor winds and their area and advised him to head north for a few days to find the westerly winds but the previous night's grib file indicated to me that the west wind would come to him that very day. And so it was. They were doing 7 kt on a SW wind and my advise was to start bearing east now.

From the grib file repor I had braced myself for a difficult night of desultory sailing in light and variable winds but I got lucky and had a great night. At 11 PM the boat was sailing well, though directly east, 20 degrees south of Cape Flattery. I decided to leave well enough alone and went back to bed. At 1 AM the situation was the same. I rose for the day at 4 AM to find Pachuca doing 6 kt headed ten degrees north of Cape Flattery. I couldn't have picked it better myself. Raising the mainsail just before dark had been a good move. At 6 AM I was 211 nm from Cape Flattery and closing fast. I seemed to be the beneficiary of a low of 1007 mb to the NW of me interacting with the Pacific High of 1031 mb to the SW of me. Once again I seemed to be at the right place at the right time. I expected a wind shift sometime during the day from the SE to the NW with an increase of wind speed.

At exactly 7.57 AM HST after cleaning up after kneading the dough for the latest loaf of bread I had the pleasure of watching the distance to Cape Flattery cross the 200 nm threshold from 200.1 nm to 199.8 nm.

The bread came out well. I had solved my rising problem by using fresh flour and yeast. However, I was having oven trouble where the bottom of the loaf tended to be doughy. This time I kept the pan at the very back of the oven so that the bottom could get more heat from the flame, used a higher oven temperature, and baked for 45 instead of 35 minutes. That worked very well. And using the how water bottle to bring up the oven to the correct temperature for the rising process has been an outstanding success for me.

At noon we were at 47.40N, 129.02W and 177 nm from Cape Flattery. Our noon-noon distance was 98 nm which wasn't bad considering that we were becalmed until late afternoon. The boat had been moving better than I had expected with prospects of more good winds from the NW soon. I was now concerned about making Neah Bay in daylight. Gotta worry about something.