Passage to Neah Bay: day 9

Date: July 21, 2012
37° 34' N 163° 39' W
Previous 24 hour run: 102
Water Temp: 74.3

Date: July 22, 2012, Time: noon PST
39° 47' N 162° 16' W
Wind speed: 15 / wind dir: 130 (SE), Heading: 042, Speed: 6.8
Barometer: 1023, Water Temp: 71.6
Log: 6686.3
Previous 24 hour run: 148

Overnight yesterday, early morning on the 21st, the wind started to fall off dramatically. 6.8 knots, then 6.5, down to 5 knots at noon with the boat moving at just over 3 knots beam reaching. There was a 6 foot swell, but the swell was perfectly round shaped as there were virtually no wind waves present, it looked unlike anything I had seen before - the ocean smoothly rising and falling. I had breakfast and started flying my spinnaker at around 1pm (which is really 10am local time as locally Hawaii time still applies.) The spinnaker looked great. The boat started moving nicely again, downwind now. I thought that might have been the last of my upwind sailing for a little while - sailing downwind is a much nicer point of sail. By 5:30 there was starting to be enough wind to fly my normal sails with some stronger gusts, so I took down the spinnaker and I have been sailing in decent wind ever since.

I passed astern of a freighter yesterday afternoon, my closest point of approach was 4nm. I saw it on my AIS display when it was 17nm away. The initial CPA calculated was ranging between 2nm and 5nm (as my boat is constantly changing its heading as it moves through the waves.)

The passage is going beautifully. I just passed the waypoint marking a turn for me, and I am now heading roughly for 48° north and 150° west - 750nm away. That point will likely be adjusted as I keep up with the weather but my idea is to get above the high before heading too far east, as to avoid ending up in its middle if it moves to me too quickly. As it turns out, all the westerly travel I did may have been unnecessary. I had expected the high to be much further west than it is now - this game of trying to predict the weather further out than what the forecasts say is hit and miss. I feel good about my choice still though, as my initial course made for a much more comfortable ride than if I had tried to bash directly north from Hanalei. I am currently sailing upwind again, with the apparent wind approximately 60deg, starboard. I expect the wind to veer around to more south and then south west eventually as I get further up and around the high.

That's today's report. From the beautiful blue pacific, this is Luckness, signing off for now.

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