I continued sailing with that SE wind well into the night. I watched another movie ("The Punisher") and at 3.30 PM started to cook a big spaghetti meal which I ate with a half a can of corned beef left over from the previous night. At the 7.30 PM session I spoke with Ryan and Jeff joined toward the end. Ryan said that they had seen a ship close by, hailed it on the VHF radio, and asked if they could see their sail boat. No they couldn't. Did they have their radar on? No. But the ship said that they had their AIS on (mandatory by law) and did the sailboat have AIS? No. Sonrisa does not have radar either, which makes them vulnerable in the fog that they've been experiencing. Ryan says that every 20 minutes or so they put out a call on the VHF asking if there are any ships within range. That is what I would do were I in their position. He said that they were moving fast - over 7 kt - downwind on a strong westerly wind. They had up their full mainsail and partial jib. He said that they hand steer the boat during the day to get maximum speed and at night they cut down their sail and flip on the autopilot. I then said good night and stood by and heard Richard speak up. He had been able to hear me only faintly so Ryan passed my position to him. The wind had started to drop at mid afternoon and I was wondering when it would changed, amazed that a SE wind had lasted this long. Chris and I had a short radio session at 9 PM because of the poor reception and when that was over it was time to face the fact that even though by some miracle Pachuca was making 3 kt against a 5 kt wind on her starboard beam, the mainsail was starting to fret and it was time to down all sail. I was not too worried about this because the grib file prediction was emphatic about a strong NW wind to last for days that should have arrived by now. I retired at 9.30 PM and set the alarm at 11.30 PM. When I woke up with the alarm I could hear the wind hissing. The NW wind had started and because the boat was still I could get an accurate reading of the true wind: over 20 knots. Fortunately Pachuca's nose was pointing N so I all I had to do was to roll out some jib to starboard. I rolled out just enough jib (just below no. 2) to make way which turned out to be plenty of sail for the conditions. Soon Pachuca was doing over 5 kt and the angle of the wind (broad reach) was offering me a range of headings covering the entire Juan de Fuca area. This was going to be good. I decided to tidy up a bulge of the mainsail hanging out of the sail cover and discovered that it was full of sweet-tasting water. I recovered 7 liters of water from it. I didn't really need the water but I figured that it would be good discipline and practice. There was a lesson here. The drizzly weather had been enough to purge the sail of salt and collect a serious pocket of water, much of which had undoubtedly been spurting out the back of the bulge in small amounts. So it seems to me that I don't need a thunderstorm to recover water. A good steady drizzle should give me a few liters of water every few hours. Thirty minutes later I was writing this entry with cup on hot chocolate in hand and the chart plotter telling me that Pachuca's heading was sweeping from Cape Flattery to Port San Juan on the northern side of the strait with a speed of 5.5-6 kt. It was a good night of downwind sailing although the boat rolled a lot during the night. At the 4.30 AM check I saw that a ship would pass within 4 nm of me in 50 minutes. I decided to stay up and watch the ship rather than return to the bunk. After making the cup of coffee I saw that the ship ha turned to port and was headed for Juan de Fuca. Never mind. The breakfast was made and I might as well stay up. That gave me the pleasure of seeing Pachuca cross the 100 nm theshold at 5.30 AM. The current speed of 5.5 kt meant that I would definitely have to heave to for 5 or 6 hours before rounding Cape Flattery. Instead of waiting for that to happen I reduced sail by half to probably a no. 4. This reduced our speed to 4.5 kt which would either eliminate or greatly reduce my need to heave to. Reducing boat speed was quite easy and allowed me to retain control of the boat rather than being forced to heave to under the uncertain effects of the wind, current, and maybe even tidal flow. Conditions outside appeared to be near gale. Wind speed was over 25 kt and the sea was gray, angry, and worked up. When I returned to the cabin I realized how warm and cozy it was inside. At mid-morning the sun made an appearance and I was hoping that this was the real thing instead of that brief 2-hour appearance the previous day that was followed by more cloud and drizzle. At noon we were at 48.15N, 126.31W, 72 nm from Cape Flattery. Our noon-noon distance was 106 nm.
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