DAY 30 - Pachuca surrounded, BUT ARRIVES OK..!

During the early afternoon session with Ryan Richard announced himself loud and clear. He said that we were no so close to each other that we were now communicating directly with the ground wave, rather than a bounce off the ionosphere. His wife Doris was with him and I said hello to her through Richard. Then he told me something very useful, that I should be now close enough to receive Coast Guard weather on channels 1 and 2 of my VHF radio. After our conversation I tried it and he was correct. I got extremely detailed weather the area and predictions for the next few days. They gave the Pacific daylight saving time and I moved my watch forward three hours. The ship's clock remained at GMT/UT and my blog updates would now report Pacific time, not Hawaii time.

Unfortunately my strategy of slowing the boat down in order to avoid heaving to before dawn was a mistake. Coast Guard weather indicated a slowing of the wind to 10-15 kt. This is not what the grib file had indicated. I soon rolled out my full jib trying to cover as much ground as possible. Shortly after dark I found myself 30 nm from Cape Flattery, fighting to keep the boat moving with a West wind of less than 10 kt. I was doing less than 2 kt at times with a reduced sail to minimize thrashing of the rigging. I could have kicked myself. I told Jeff that night that I should have taken his advice and made speed then heave to. I'll try to remember that lesson: Always take the wind while it is there.

Chris and I had a good session and he gave me the telephone number of the marina at Neah Bay.

At 1.30 AM I went to sleep for one hour. There was no AIS target coming close to me for at least 90 minutes and I figured that it was better to snatch sleep when I could rather then driving myself to a dangerous situation where I might miss an alarm or use poor judgment.

At 2.30 AM I woke up to see Pachuca surrounded by six ships. Had none of them posed any danger I would have returned to the bunk. However, there was a ship, the Triton Bulker headed for Vancouver that would pass very close to me - within 1000 ft at times - in about 40 minutes. Fortunately the visibility was good and I could see it clearly at 6 miles away. I hailed it on the VHF radio and got an immediate response. I explained that I was a sail boat 6 nm ahead of him, speed 2.4 kt, course 045 T, and I was sailing in light winds and had little control; and could he see me. In a calm and professional manner he replied that he could see me and had been aware of me for a while. I thanked him, wished him a good evening, and signed off. Soon the chart plotter alarm went off because the ship was within 24 minutes of reaching my 2-mile radius safety zone. I acknowledged the alarm (which will not stop until it is acknowledged) and noticed that the symbol for that ship on the chart plotter now had a red border and was flashing. I had a look when the ship was 3 nm away and her lights were clear and unequivocal: lead white light low, rear white light high, red light on the side. She was going to pass me on her port side about 1.2 nm away. I also noticed dawn's first light.

Thirty minutes later the C120 put out a second alarm. It was the Mega Donor passing at 1.6 nm in 24 minutes. No Problemo. I was feeling pretty good. Dawn was breaking and the wind had picked up ever so slightly. At 4.30 AM the Mega Donor was abeam of me and posed no danger, and three other ships had passed me and were ahead. The only other AIS target was a ship coming my way out of Juan de Fuca, but it was 53 nm and two hours away. For good measure I turned on the 24-mile radar and saw some sea clutter but no other hard targets. I decided to finish my cup of tea and have another hour of sleep. I was 23 nm from Cape Flattery. Neah Bay was 7 miles beyond the cape.

When I arose I made the decision to motor to Neah Bay. The wind had dropped to almost nothing - perhaps 5 kt - and I faced the prospect of flogging the jib all day go mayge 2 kt. Stronger winds were promised for that night but what good would that do me? The whole idea was to make my entry in daylight. At 6 A, 28 nm from Neah Bay, I started the engine. When I finished starting the engine and setting the autopilot I looked up there they were: the northwest corner of the continental USA to the right and Canada to the left. The cleft in the middle was the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The approach to the Strait was disappointingly slow - 4 kt or less. But once I was in the Strait I was amazed to see 8.4 kt at one point. I knew that I was coming in during flood tide so that may have helped me. The weather cleared as the morning wore on and I enjoyed the scenery as Pachuca made her way to Neah. I had spent a lot of time up top looking for floating logs and "dead heads", those lethal logs that hang vertically just below surface level. I didn't see any but the Coast Guard issued a Pan Pan Pan alert on the VHF radio about a dead head, giving its geographical location and GPS coordinates. However, I motored through a lot of floating tree debris. I'm not accustomed motoring through floating vegetation. At first I would cut down the engine revolutions, go into neutral gear, and drift through the material, but later I got more relaxed about it. The shipping was no problem. At one point AIS was displaying 13 ships. Most were no threat to me. I contacted one that seemed to be coming too close. He said that he had seen me so I didn't worry about it.

I dropped anchor an Neah Bay at 11.50 AM Pacific Summer Time. I thus had motored almost 5 hours. I was in 8.5 meters of water, riding on 30 meters of 3/8" chain with my Manson 45-lb plow anchor. The boat was sitting solid as a rock with no rolling for the first time in 30 days. I set the anchor alarm and recorded the GPS position of the boat and the direction in which she was hanging from the anchor.

It had been first solo sail on Pachuca and I was pleased with how the 2200 nautical mile passage went. The Monitor wind vane and the new communications system transformed the sailing into a style of cruising that I didn't event think possible when I first got the sailing bug in the 1980's and expected nothing more than to hand steer a small simple boat around the world in near-total anonymity. I think that I chose my route well, with good advice from friends like Jeff and Chris. I had expected the trip to take 25-30 days and I must say that 30 days is pretty good given that I sailed out of Ala Wai Harbor knowing that the winds were all wrong and that I would take a big hit in the early days of my passage. (But it paid off: I was sailing two full days before Honolulu got any reasonable winds.) The closing on Juan de Fuca was much easier than I had expected, which had been an expectation of one or two sleepless days while I negotiated my way through the crowded shipping lanes and arrival exhausted and partially deranged. There was only one "crunch" night and even then I managed to get enough sleep and finished the entry the next day in a remarkably good state. I attribute this to (1) being fit and ready after 30 days of pampering myself with good food and plenty of rest, (2) the marvelous equipment on Pachuca, in particular the Monitor wind vane steering which performed beyond my wildest expectations and took most of the worries of steering the boat off my hands, and the AIS which acted as both Town Crier and Watch Dog on behalf of Pachuca.

It didn't take me long to pour myself the first alcohol in 30 days. I had made the decision to make this a dry passage for safety reasons. Well, strictly speaking that is not true. Just before Jeff and I backed Pachuca out of her slip at Ala Wai to fuel her up before my departure I went looking for Paul with the last ice cold beer in my ice box to say good bye and to be the true Aussie mate and give him my last beer. Unfortunately he was not around so I had the beer after I cleared the reefs outside of Ala Wai and had hoisted the mainsail. Anyway, Gordon and his wife Alysha (not sure of the spelling) who had their boat in the slip next to mine very generously gave me two bottles of Chivas Regal. So here, safely at anchor in the officially dry Indian reservation of Neah Bay, I opened the first bottle and toasted the successful trip with the first drink and toasted happiness and good health to Gordon and Alysha with the second drink. I hope that they finish doing up their Grand Banks without too many problems and spend many years enjoying it. Next I'll toast Jeff the Monitor self-steering. I wish that I could offer him a drink. But you see, Jeff does not eat or drink and never complains.
And after that ... well ... there are so many things in my life to toast ....

DAY 29 - Close to Flattery....

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.

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.

DAY 27 - Charging the Batteries

The boat sailed well for the rest of yesterday with a reliable NW wind. In mid-afternoon I noticed that the SOG was down to 4.5 kt so I unrolled the jib to a no. 2 and brought it back up another half knot. Occasionally I would tweak Jeff to keep the course to the middle of Vancouver island, north of Cape Flattery.

At the evening radio session Ryan reported that they had torn their spinnaker at a lower horizontal seam and could not patch it up with tape. Ryan said that it was a light spinnaker and I suspect that they pushed it too hard in their haste to get home. They have no spare spinnaker so they will have to rely on the jib for their downwind work as I have. They were almost becalmed and had been advised buy Don to head north. They were planning to motor until they got wind. These guys are anxious to get back home and will motor all they have to. Ryan said that they have 40 gallons diesel which he reckons can run the engine for four days.

I exchanged emails with Jim at Sailmail Tech Support regarding the Getfax problem. He was glad that I had run that last wfax session with the GPS receiver connected because that was the next thing that he was going to ask me. I confirmed that I was not using Bluetooth for my modem-Acer connection and was using a hard wire connection using a printer-type cable. I then basically signed off on the problem and thanked Jim for his prompt response and great interaction, giving Sailmail Tech Support a rating of 10 out of 10. ... Needless to say this resolution has been productive for Jim too because he'll now be ready for the next mini laptop user that reports the problem. I wouldn't be surprised if they eliminate that high baud rate as a Getfax option.

Just after dark I noticed that the jib was occasionally collapsing in a hard roll so I wound it back to a 1.5. I lost a half knot in speed but the sail was much happier. The grib file indicated poor winds for the next day and I was apprehensive about the speed and stability of the wind during the night. I was fortunate with good winds throughout the night. I made checks at midnight and 2 AM to find the boat ambling along happily at 4.5 kt, straight down the rhumb line. I awoke again at 4 AM to find that we were now less than 300 nm from Cape Flattery - 298 to be exact. At 5.30 AM we crossed another threshold: Lat 47N. The latitude of Cape Flattery is 48.23N, which is just over 70 nm to the north. Once I have reached the latitude of Cape Flattery I will be more relaxed about heading directly for it, being confident that I can make the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca with any wind on an arc from NNE back around W to SSE.

While waiting for the 8 AM fax session out of San Francisco (Hawaii is now too far away.) I used the chart plotter to explore the coast down to San Francisco. There are a few bolt holes down the Oregon coast, including the mouth of the Columbia River, but they would involve motoring up long and narrow channels. I would use them only in case of emergency.

San Francisco looked more inviting, of course. There is an unrestricted anchorage tucked around the corner at the north side of the Golden Gate bridge. It should provide good protection from the ocean swell, fast current, and hopefully also the winds that scream through that gap to the sea. The setting should be spectacular, with views of SF and Oakland. Although the SF Bay is large and expansive seen from land the charts tell another story of shallows everywhere. Things must be better than they look on the chart because I've seen for myself some of the thousands of large boats in marinas to the north of the bridge. I envision spending a night at the anchorage then take it from there.

At 7.45 AM the headsail began to thrash due to insufficient wind. I rolled in the jib and as usual lashed the wheel with shock cord. I couldn't complain. The wind lasted long enough to give me good night's sleep while the boat made good progress. Besides, the first real sun that had seen in four days emerged while I was in the cockpit.

I ran the engine for an hour to charge the batteries while making way. The sun had emerged big-time and soon I had my shoes and some damp clothes and towels drying in the sun.

At noon we were at 47.10N, 131.21W. We had a noon-noon distance of 102 nm and were 275 nm from Cape Flattery. I was hoping that the next lot of predicted wind would get me round the cape on Day 30, 20 June.

Pachuca Information Overload...........

Its hard to admit, but I spend too much time on the computer :)

I love finding free websites where everything is laid out, like a huge smorgasbord. At these websites you can sit and gorge yourself with information.

Ladies and gentlemen I now present the "Pachuca Overload" web page.

Please help yourself ! Its all laid on.............. You can sit fascinated with only the most up to date information, for ages.

For example, the image below shows Pachuca surrounded by other ships. Her call sign is VNW5980 and she is in the centre of the page. Please click to see larger image.










If you want an information overload, then the website is;

http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposition.phtml?call=VNW5980





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Boys and Ships..........

Hi.

There is a great plugin (or addon) for Google Earth that shows ships and buoys within Pachuca's immediate vicinity. These passing ships and stationary buoys provide weather and sea condition information updated constantly (in realtime).

What this means is by knowing where Pachuca is, I can provide sea conditions to this Blog or Bob as long as Pachuca passes near a ship or buoy.

Please click on this picture to show the current range of ships and buoys. Pachuca is the purple boat icon.



I hope to use this facility as much as possible. Here is the weather from the nearest buoy to Pachuca.

DAY 26 - Gybing the jib...........

I sailed for the rest of the afternoon downwind with a small jib pulling the boat along.

I checked my Sailmail during that time and got more great information from Allan Miell way Down Under at Kangaroo Island, South Australia on the technique of using two sails for downwind runs. He gave up flying kites (ie spinnakers) 40 years ago in his first year of solo sailing when he got one wrapped around his keel. He recommends poling out the regular jib and pairing it with a second sail, "free standing" (i.e. not hanked) right up forward next to the headstay. The sails do not have to match in size. He gave me great insight into why and how it will steer the boat and how the forward drive is down low, whereas a spinnaker puts a lot of load at the top of the mast, making the stern lighter and stressing the back stay. He saved me a lot of experimenting time by explaining why hanking the seoond sail in the inner forestay is unlikely to work. I will pick my day and try this out using my staysail. If I get satisfactory results I'll try to get a second hand larger light sail for the job. (I've got 2 spare jibs in the sail locker but they are too big and heavy for this application.)

Another great help from Allan's advice: I no longer feel like a wimp for not wanting to fly solo kites. I've got two little-used spinnakers in my locker: an asymmetric and an MPS, both hardly used. I'll want to keep them for possible use back in Austalia but for now it would be great to ship at least one of them home to free up space and reduce weight. On the other hand, you never know. In the next two years I could find myself on a passage or even a day sail where I've got enough crew to give the kite a go.

After my 7.30 PM radio session I noted that the wind had veered and the boat was again heading ESE. At 8.30 PM I the wind had not backed so I decided to gybe. I managed to do this just in time for the 9 PM session with Chris. The boat was now headed to the northern end of Vancouver Island. Richard, by the way, was only 128 nm from home. Yesterday was his 43rd day at sea.

I went to bed with the plan of rising at 2-hour intervals in order to deal with any wind shifts. At midnight I saw that the boat was headed NNW and after doing some mental calculations concluded that another gybe was warranted. I did this and soon had Pachuca headed almost directly for Cape Flattery.

At the 4 AM check the boat was headed SSE. I gybed the boat yet again and once again was headed for Cape Flattery at 5.5 kt on a no. 2 jib. This latest wind shift had been a big one so I zoomed up the boat's track and saw that she had traveled only 2 nm SSE. This is the sort of penalty the single hander has to pay.

I find that gybing the jib is more difficult and risky than reefing the mainsail. The first thing that I must do is to check that the weather (ie loose) jib sheet is free. About 50% of the time it has wrapped around the sampson post or anchor windlass. This means a trip past the mast to the fordeck, adjusting the jib car along the way. (The risk here is mitigated by the jack line and the "Dieter Line" chest-level perimeter of rope from the cockpit to the inner forestay and back.) Then the jib must be rolled almost completely in, which means simultaneously loosening the jib sheet and pulling on the roller line. This having been done then I load up the weather sheet on the winch and pass the end of it to the steering area, then partially unload the lee sheet and hang on to that while I get behind the wheel. Then I disengage the self steering, turn the wheel to execute the gybe and as the boat crosses the wind I have to manage the wheel, let off the weather sheet, and bring on the new lee sheet while paying out the roller furling line. Give me a one-step-at-a-time mainsail reef job any time.

During the morning I successfully downloaded 15 faxes with no errors. Having given the favorable outcome I'll now confess that I was naughty and downloaded the weather faxes with the GPS receiver connected to the system. I had reinstated the GPS the previous noon in order to put out my Yotreps position report (too lazy to manually key in the numbers) and decided that it would do no harm to leave it connected until the start of the next series of fax downloads. I forgot to do this and when I did remember I decided to leave the GPS in place. I agreed with Jim that the load from the GPS was minimal and besides, I had run a series of fax downloads without the GPS and still gotten the error.

I am fairly confident that we have fixed the problem. The baud rate between the Acer and the Pactor modem has been reduced from the maximum of 115200 to 57600, which is plenty considering that there are 3 levels below that, down to 9600. I have certainly seen no degradation in performance.

The wind and weather, by the way, looked pretty good for the next few days. The 96-hour forecast predicted gale conditions off the Oregon coast but happily I would be well north of that.

At noon we were at 46.23N, 133.34W. Our 24-hour noon-noon distance was 102 nm and we were 378 nm from Cape Flattery.