25.26.329N 153.43.233W

Midnight watch again.

It's odd to call it midnight because there was still light in the sky at 10:45. We'll go on Hawaiian time when we get there, but we stay Californian till then, so our clock and the sun are getting really out of whack.

Nice day today. Spent most of the day on an easy reach with the spinnaker up. Yep, you read that right. The skipper caved and we got to pick it up a little. Actually, I waited till he was occupied on the radio (we're the communications boat for the fleet, coordinating assistance, doing rollcallls and position reports, etc.) so he spends a LOT of time working on that. So I let him get all tied up in that, then real sneaky like put the chute up so that it was all flying nice when he poked his head out, so what could he say? "Keep up the good work," We got to use it till late agternoon when a mini-squall encouraged us to not push our luck, so down it came.

Picked up 3 flying fish off the deck this morning. Saw scads more of them through the day. No other boats or wildlife of note. Awesome sunset. & best stargazing yet. Milky Way looks painted on. Had some good tunes on the cockpit speakers. Swells might have gotten to 10 feet today, but long easy ones. Not over 5 feet right now but a little confused, so I'm probably making all kinds of typos. Jogging along now in 12-15 knots on a loose reach going about 8 knots. Should be a nice sleep, which I'm gonna hit real quick.

Getting excited about seeing Lydia and the kids. If all goes according to plan, they'll be on the dock when we hit Kaneohe Yacht Club. Looks like that'll be about 2 more days.

P.S. I gave AIS a final check before signing off and it showed an unidentified craft 30 miles away on a collision crossing course going 15 knots which puts them in our lap in 2 hours. Either one of the big fast racers or a fishing boat, no doubt. So I warned the crew on deck to keep an eye out for em. First boat contact all day.

Whiskey Delta Bravo 2898 VALIS out