Saturday update

Time: 3:00 PM Hawaiian time
Position: 38.23    (38 degrees 13.618 minutes)
       -137.63   (137 degrees 37.450 minutes)
Wind:  8-12 knots true
      320 degrees true (slowly moving aft during last few days)
Sea: Gentle, 4 foot swell, no white caps

A few days ago,  I saw a huge rope floating passed us on the left about 20 feet from the boat.  Yesterday as we were putting up the spinnaker and the motor was already off I saw a net pass within 5 feet of the boat on the right side.  Last night while motoring to maintain speed in 8 knots of wind we fouled our prop.  The worst thing to me is hitting things, especially with the engine running.  I prefer going a little more slowly than running the engine at night.  It was a tense 10 hours while we waited until it warmed enough to venture into the water, but Jared did and all is resolved.  He earned the right to opt out of all cleaning duties and sleep during night watches if he wants.
I heated the house water for hot showers so everyone that went into the water could have a hot shower.  It was fun after the fact.  Thinking all night about going into the water and wondering what we would find was not so fun.

Later this morning we spotted what looked like a grey metal suit case floating in the water. From a distance it looked like it could contain something valuable.  We circled only to find a grey plastic jug with dozens of mussel type bi-valves and crabs living on it.  There is a lot of junk floating around.

Right now we are doing about 7 knots in 11-12 knots of wind with the code 0 sail up!  What is nice about sailing here is that you can take your time to trim the sail, experiment and learn how to use the sail while going in a straight line with fairly constant wind.  You don't need to tack every 10 minutes like on the bay.  There were several times I wondered if it was worth getting the code 0, but I have used that sail more on this trip than ever before.  The wind in San Francisco is hardly ever light enough to use it.  Today the ocean is fairly flat.  The wind is oscillating between 8 and 12 knots and our experimenting got us going 5.75 - 7.1 knots through the water.  We also have an additional 1/2 knot of current.  Our apparent wind is 40-45 degrees ahead of true wind.  It is fast and pleasant sailing this late afternoon in a light breeze!  The code 0 and the large 150 have been used more on this trip than ever before.  We have also used the large light spinnaker that we used 10 of the 12 days going to Hawaii.  Very different than sailing in the SF area.

It is getting cooler only Gautam has bare feet at night now.  People are putting on fleece and jackets too.  The dark nights are beautiful even if they are a little cooler, but it is not cold yet.

-Phil