33.17.313N 132.36.576W

Good day today! Nice wind and lots of chatter on the radio. It seems
several of our courses have sort of converged in this part of the ocean
and we've enjoyed sighting a couple of boats as well as seeing more on
the AIS.

For those unfamiliar with it, the AIS is a transponder that transmits
your location, speed, heading, vessel type, etc. so that nearby vessels
can avoid collisions. It's our primary means of avoiding getting mowed
down by big ships. They have strong AIS transmitters, so we can see
them sometimes 50 or more miles away. If their path & speed are a
threat to us, we contact them on the radio and make sure they know where
we are. Naturally, if a ship is going to pass close, you keep a very
watchful eye till you actually see him pass with your own eyes.

Anyway, we see Lightspeed, our rival from last night, still more or less
abeam of us, 10 miles to our south. That's out of visual range, but we
feel good about keeping the boat from teh faster class that close all day.

There was a really cool visual this afternoon when the sun broke through
the solid cloud deck maybe 2 miles away. The patch of sea it lit up was
brilliantly silver against the otherwise dull surface and the fact that
we could only see the wave tops made for a beautiful effect.

Another point of interest is that our travel across the globe is quite
noticable in terms of daylight. The first night it was DARK when I came
off watch at 9:00 pm. Tonight it was still very light.

The spinnaker is up. We're sliding along at a comfortable 8-9 knots.
The crew is well fed, though smelling a bit funky. Rich & Dick are on
watch, everyone else but me is snoozing and I'm about to join them.
Gotta be up at 0300.

Whiskey Delta Bravo 2898 VALIS out
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