Day 18- fast days, long nights

Time: 1700 Zulu (noon PV time)
Position: 19-deg 06-min N 138-deg 10-min W
Wind: NE 19-knots Seas: NE 6-ft
Avg. Course: 269 T Avg. Speed: 5.6-knots
Rig: 80% jib
24-hr distance traveled: 135-nm
Distance to Hilo: 959-nm

You know you've been at sea a long time when bacon-fried spam, potatoes and diced tomatoes tastes good. The afternoon yesterday was a surfing sleigh ride continued. Shawn motivated for some "spring" cleaning, deep cleaning the galley, stove top, and refrigerator and reorganizing food provisions for accessibility. In terms of fresh food, we still have plenty: cucumbers, tomatoes, jicama, squash, potatoes, onions, lemons, limes and apples. Chris calculated that we have a 4-apple-per-day minimum if we are to eat them all before we have to give them up upon landfall.

The days with their sunny afternoons fly by and the night watches have been long and dark. Although the stars do shine when the clouds break up, we are still awaiting the moon to grow and shine our way to Hawaii. Though the winds are still consistently 15-25, we realize that this is quite a range for different sail configuration options. We've chosen to continue with 80% +/- some amount of main sail. Every once in a while we are motivated to put more sail area up, but then we surf a wave and top our theoretical hull speed... Both of us are having a hard time getting motivated for our dark watches. It has been difficult to pull ourselves out of the dry, down and Grizzly warmed bunk, to face hourly squalls and search for fast approaching ships. But after a cup of tea down, Chris on the graveyard shift enjoys the alone time and listening to iPod books on tape and music, and Shawn, with the sun starting to light the sky, enjoys the dramatic energy of constantly changing cloud formations. And we each zip up and make the best of it when saltwater splashes into the cockpit or freshwater falls horizontally.

We hear that we are nearing the edge of SPOT coverage. Don't worry if the reports stop coming, all is still well aboard, we're still sending them out, just the map will not update if there is no satellite reception. Remember you can still see us on a map via other position reports (winlink, Yotreps, PacSea) by clicking one of the alternative links (on the sidebar on the right hand side of the main page, or links provided on the map page). We've been preparing for this adventure of sailing to Hawaii for so long, that as it draws closer to reality, all of a sudden we realize we need to start thinking about how we want to spend our time once we reach Hawaii, very exciting!