35.47.596N 128.01.770W

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I'm not sure what I sent last time and I cant see it, so this might be
redundant. Nice day, but unspectacular sailing. We made good time
through the night with a top speed of 8.3 knots around 4:00 am. Quite a
bit of reaching in light air and sloppy seas today though. Right this
instant (9:15 pm Pacific Time) it's blowing 10, we're going about 6, and
the swells are confused and 6-10 feet, so it's sort of like trying to
hurry down a washboarded, lousy dirt road.

Saw some cool birds, but nothing notable fish-wise. We've encountered 3
ships since I checked in last. All of them 700-900 feet long and going
more than twice as fast as us, so we give them plenty of room. Even
from a mile and a half away they are sort of creepy in the middle of the
night.

We did see a sail on the southern horizon just before dark. No idea who
it was. We could check all the positions from this morning and probably
figure it out, but nobody has that kind of energy. We only get the
positions of the other boats every morning. We can't see the tracker
that you all can.

Well, Phil whipped up some spaghetti worthy of a medal tonight, and
dinner was on my watch. So I'm full, tired, and just coming out of the
damp air for a nap. Gotta be up and going at 0300.

Oh, I almost forgot the big news of the day. I took off my wool
underwear! It's warming up a little, so we all started shedding layers.
I literally found a layer of clothes that I had forgotten that I put
on. To say that the boat is developing a 'salty' air about it would be
accurate, with 5 others in the same state of wardrobe. It ain't pretty,
but we're having a ball!

Whiskey Delta Bravo 2898 VALIS out


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