Date: July 29, 2012
47° 44' N 146° 17' W
Previous 24 hour run: 116
Water Temp: 51.8
Date: July 30, 2012, Time: noon PST
47° 38' N 142° 42' W
Wind speed: 17 / wind dir: 180 (S), Heading: 090, Speed: 6.7
Barometer: 1020, Water Temp: 53.6
Log: 7545.6
Previous 24 hour run: 145
Approximate destination lat/lon: 48° 30' N 128° 50' W
Yesterday evening some wind started to arrive and then overnight it filled in to 15 to 17 knots from the south. This is a nice wind range and I've been making really good time ever since. From the computer model of the weather I downloaded yesterday (the GRIB file) it looks like the current wind is going to stay around tonight, through tomorrow and then tomorrow evening it will start veering around to the west and weaken overnight. Two days from now it looks like I may be back to light winds.
At noon today I was 720nm from Neah Bay. At 130nm days, that's just over 5 days. I hate to predict my landfall, so I'm not going to. It probably won't be another 17 days though!
One note on my equipment, my wind indicator's battery died again a few days ago. I've left it off charging for two days and turned it back on today - it had a 2/3'rds charge and so will probably die again tomorrow or the next day. This happened the last time I was in cloud for a long period and I need to get the unit to TackTick (now Raymarine) so they can fix it. Or alternatively find a way of wiring in a non-TackTick unit powered by my boat system. Its on my growing list of things I want to work on when I arrive in Seattle. When I left last September I couldn't think of very much else I could do to the boat...now I have two full pages of improvements I want to make. That's what sea trials are for, right?
Aside from the improvement in the wind, the weather here is pretty much unchanged from my last report. 100% grey skies. It has been raining off and on today, but more of a heavy mist than a rain mainly, it hasn't been any real hardship.
I am constantly amazed at how large this ocean is. Its huge! I've been traveling for 17 days now and will still have only seen a small fraction of it. Its an amazing place to be. One thing that has returned is phosphorescence - it was largely absent in the Hawaiian waters - there were sparkles in my wake but that's all. Now at night I'm seeing a bright column of water behind the boat where the keel has passed through as well as my bow wake on both sides of the boat lit up brightly. There are no stars out, and watching it helps pass the time.
There are still seabirds around, and I have had several albatross sightings a day for the last few weeks. The albatross flies majestically, with what looks like so little effort. Its a big bird with a wide wingspan and I watch them every chance I get.
That's today's report. All is well onboard.
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How lovely to have the phosphorescence back. And the sea birds. Must be a sign of getting closer to land. I can imagine how those olden-day must have felt when they started to spot sea birds after crossing an ocean. Much like you maybe? Too bad about he grey skies! Glad things are smooth.
ReplyDeletexo mum