Position: 19 degrees 14 minutes North, 120 degrees 11 minutes West
About 1970 miles to go?
We've been making good progress - lots of wind out here. More than we were hoping for at times. On Thursday we hove-to for a bit to make it more comfortable for dinner, it was probably blowing 25-30 at times, and we've seen seas up to 10 feet. We've been making lots of sail changes, shortening sail to keep the boat more comfortable at times (we've used the storm jib a bunch), and then today, getting out the spinnaker to keep moving in light winds. It seems to pick up in the afternoons then backs off overnight, and today was down to only 5 knots at times; right now it's back up to a gusty 15-20. We're still getting winds from the N/NW, and hoping to be in the NE tradewinds any day now?.It should be a more comfortable sail once we have the wind on the quarter (more behind us). Meals have been pretty basic so far, except for our day/night at anchor, when Lori baked banana bread and made pasta salad, and we grilled some of our steaks. Tomorrow night is the Jewish celebration of Passover, so Jane has a special meal planned.
As we were getting ready to pull anchor at Isla Benedicto, four humpback whales appeared in the anchorage, really close to the boat! 3 adults and one baby it looked like. Quite a site. They kept surfacing and swimming around us for about 15 minutes. Shortly after, several dolphins swam through the bay and then as we were stowing the anchor, we saw two big black and white things in the water - Manta Rays! They looked huge, at least 10 feet wing tip to tip. We watched them for a bit then decided it was time to head towards Hawaii.
Before leaving San Benedicto Tim gave the girls fishing lure making lessons, though as of yet the fishing has been fairly poor!! Unfortunately we found out that our "lucky lure" appeared quite attractive to Brown Booby birds and we had to carefully release a pretty freaked out bird before calling it quits for the day! Luckily Jane had enough foresight to provision well!
We must be close to changing time zones as the sun has been setting around 9 PM or so, and the first sign of its reappearance isn't until close to 9 AM! In the wee hours of this morning the nearly full moon appeared to be a pale green!! The full moon makes for a beautiful night watch but hard to see the stars. 4 days now and no sign of other life! We haven't seen another ship since a trawler on the day we left San Benedicto (Tuesday). No ships, no planes and hardly any birds out here (with the exception of a few Storm Petrels and some flying fish)? just a lot of very blue water, and some pretty chilly winds? no one would have thought that on a voyage from hot Mexico to tropical Hawaii we would be all decked out in long johns and fleece!!!!!!! Thank goodness for smartwool socks, says jane!
Another reminder, while we don't get around to the blog every day, Jane has been checking in on the Pacific Seafarers net each night, and our position (S/V Midnight Blue, call sign KF7OHO) should be posted on www.pacsea.org daily.
