Life is Good!!

Air temp: 67 degrees
Humidity: 90%(It’s raining) Barometer: 1026 mb and up 1 in the last three hours Speed: 5 knots Course: 090 degrees True
Noon to noon distance made in nautical miles for the last 24 hours: 95 miles
Point of Sail: Beam reach
Wind speed: North 10-12 knots
Swells: West 4-6 ft.
Noon Latitude: 41 deg 36′ N (Same latitude as Eureka, CA, but 726 miles west of it)
Noon Longitude: 141 deg 41′ W
Camanoe’s fish count since Maui: Flying fish – 7 Squid – 0 Mahi Mahi – 1
Breakfast today: Oatmeal
Lunch today: Chicken noodle soup by chef Dave
Dinner tonight: Mexican pressure cooker black bean soup and tortillas (All ingredients from Mexico)

My spirit is soaring!! I love sailing!! The last 24 hours we have been running in light winds with opposing genoa and staysail. One hour ago the wind veered around to the north. We are now on a broad reach in 10 knots of wind with six foot swells on our stern. Thanks to Windy we are flying along at seven knots. And yes, this is me we’re talking about, over cautious, I have a reef in the main and only a partial Genoa out. Life is good as we surf down the swells and the water rushes past the hull while the bow threatens to plunge into the water every couple of seconds. I don’t expect these conditions to hold out for long, but I will enjoy it while it lasts. It’s times like these I vote for wind vane self-steering. An autopilot couldn’t do this for weeks on end without either breaking or using all of your battery power. Then again, at seven knots the trolling generator is putting out eight plus amps into the batteries. It should be able to keep up with an autopilot’s electrical demands.

As of now I’m only 850 miles west of San Francisco, and 200 miles north. The weatherfax and wind/wave charts indicate strong north winds and larger seas from the north as I approach the coast so I will keep heading due east until reaching these predicted swells. Then I will start heading southeast towards San Francisco and take the swell on the stern quarter. This should make for a more comfortable ride as I approach the coast. If the seas are not bad I might make landfall in Eureka/Crescent City for a day or two and explore the beauty that is Northern California.

-CAPT