Heading to Hawaii: second day

Date: Mar 14, 2012, Time: 10:10am hawaii time
22° 19.'8 N 112° 10.8' W
Wind speed: 11 / wind dir: NW, Heading: 278, Speed: 5.7
Barometer: 1016, Water Temp: 67
Log: 3190.9, Batteries: %100
Distance remaining: 2406 Previous 24 hour run: by GPS: 146

After leaving the Marina in Puerto los Cabos we (Sockdolager, Zulu and Luckness) encountered south wind of around 5 knots. We all motored over to the tip of the Baja peninsula south of Cabo San Lucas in order to get more wind and a better departure angle. None of us wanted to hang around this area with all its traffic, but rather wanted to get our trip underway and start making our distance offshore. Sockdolager and Zulu are both headed to French Polynesia. It was cool being in a group of three boats and six people, where everybody was undertaking a major passage. It almost seemed ordinary to be doing this.

As we rounded the cape, the wind kept veering and ended up at WNW, which was forecast. I started sailing, heading south of my rhumb line but making distance away from the cape. Over the next several hours the wind continued to veer, ending at NW for the evening. The wind strength increased to the range 12 to 18 and I was off to a fast start. Luckness was moving through the water nicely, although with my apparent wind angle at 50-60 degrees on starboard, in these winds it was a wet ride. By the morning the wind had continued to veer to be roughly from the north, where it is now. The wind strength has come down somewhat, but I'm still making good progress. There also appears to be roughly a half of knot of current helping me, which is nice.

I'm currently around 25 miles south of my rhumb line between my departure point and Hilo hawaii. I'm currently making some of this back as my course is north of my bearing to Hilo - so at some point over the next day or two I'll probably end up north of my line which is where I'd like to be for this trip. The south I sacrificed yesterday was for a good cause: my comfort and progress. With the winds as they are now, I can start paying back the southing I borrowed yesterday.

Energy is plentiful, the batteries haven't been below around 98% full so far. The wind generator is working like a champ in these conditions.

Surprisingly, there are lots of targets being acquired by my AIS, I'm currently seeing 20 targets. However they are all far over the horizon. If I didn't have AIS I wouldn't even be aware they were out there.
Everything is going well with the boat and I.

I'll try to update my position reports daily, so those of you with access to my main blog page, you can click on my location link to see where I am once a day. Again - if I don't update for several days, please don't worry!