Early morning, Margi spotted land. Martinique, which is higher and more brightly-lit. Very close to St. Lucia, which we can now see too! Yay. Looks like an early afternoon arrival.

Last night was simply splendid, with a bright, clear, starry sky, complete with shooting stars. A few nights ago, a sliver of a crescent moon was playing hide-and-seek behind the jib, with Venus and Jupiter dancing attendance. The horns of the crescent pointed up, which, after some sober reflection, is of course the result of us being down near the equator. Gives you a different perspective on things.

But last night, no moon, no clouds, so we got alla the stars. Very nice. Makes you say wow.

Skipper is trolling the line for one last shot at murdering some fish. So far the score is fish: 4, Skipper:0, so you can see that there is a bit of pride involved.

St Lucia dominates the horizon now, off to the left there. The spinnaker dances merrily on its 8-foot pennant, but still pulls forward toward the passage between St. Lucia and Martinique. We'll just pop over the tip of the islannd and duck into Rodney Bay, where we will clear customs and have our first dry-land meal in several weeks.

Pets are not allowed on the island, according to our cruising guide, so this may be an interesting challenge for the dog owners, to say nothing of the dogs, who have only minimal experience being confined to a boat when there is perfectly good land in sight and swimming distance.

I'll be hopping a plane the next day, so I will have to hear about how that goes later. With good speed, and the ability to avoid collapsing the spinnaker, we should make our current arrival forecast and all the good, cold, and frosty things that entails right now.

Wind kept up all night, so we continue to make progress! This morning, eta-meter was predicting 40 hours so that's um, hey wait a minute....

Is that right? if today is the second, we arrive morning of the 4th. Yeah, I guess that's right. Probably before sunrise so we may stand off till first light and then walk in like we own the place. Yeah.

Feels like the wind is dying down, a bit, so I may take a look out of my cabin (yes, we have cabins on this boat) and see what's going on. Or not, since there is not a lot one can do about wind except put up a bigger sail, and really, is that all that fun?

Actually, yes.

We saw a sea turtle! I called up those interested and we watched it swim along toward the Antilles (including St. Lucia). Apparently there were hundreds of dolphins last night. Brisa the dog got so excited that she had to be confined to her crate for fear that she'd jump in with them.

Still no land birds. No frigates or tropic birds. Pigeons neither, nor larks, robins, parrots. Nope. Maybe later today.

With three weeks on the water, added to three weeks out of the country beforehand, it will be interesting to see what news has transpired. I heard that there was an election, is that right?

Wind kept up all night, so we continue to make progress! This morning, eta-meter was predicting 40 hours so that's um, hey wait a minute....

Is that right? if today is the second, we arrive morning of the 4th. Yeah, I guess that's right. Probably before sunrise so we may stand off till first light and then walk in like we own the place. Yeah.

Feels like the wind is dying down, a bit, so I may take a look out of my cabin (yes, we have cabins on this boat) and see what's going on. Or not, since there is not a lot one can do about wind except put up a bigger sail, and really, is that all that fun?

Actually, yes.

We saw a sea turtle! I called up those interested and we watched it swim along toward the Antilles (including St. Lucia). Apparently there were hundreds of dolphins last night. Brisa the dog got so excited that she had to be confined to her crate for fear that she'd jump in with them.

Still no land birds. No frigates or tropic birds. Pigeons neither, nor larks, robins, parrots. Nope. Maybe later today.

With three weeks on the water, added to three weeks out of the country beforehand, it will be interesting to see what news has transpired. I heard that there was an election, is that right?

Did I say 20 knots? Dude, how about 25, sometimes 30! THese are tradewinds. Powerful enough to whisk Spanish Galleons across the atlantic. Yes those big lumbering thing crammed with pieces of eight. Those. They took about 22 days. Even Colombus only took 22 and he did not even know where he was going.

We are 480 miles away and should arrive late December 3 or early December 4, assuming this holds up. So that's, um, 18 days, since we left on the 15th. Okay, we have officially exceeded the technology of the late 1400s.

The swells are smaller, but closer together than you'd find on the Pacific, so we bounce around a bit. Because APhrodite is a catamaran, we don't heel much at all, but we do rock and roll. The wind was too much for the spinnaker, so we took it down, and also reefed the main. We unrolled the jib, but could not get it to set properly because the boat is not equipped with a pole, so we are running under main alone and making mostly 8-9 knots, with some stimulating periods of 11 knots.

The dogs alternate between sitting like dashboard ornaments on the cabin-top and running around like chicken-headed fools. We tell them to settle down, since the chances of finding a pure black dog that might have fallen overboard are nil.

Sometimes they settle down.

THe waves sometimes settle down too. Only 4 feet high right now. Wups, just saw a six-footer stroll by the window, but mostly 4 feet. The only problem is that they are made of solid water and carry enough energy to bounce a 23000 pound boat around. So we bounce.

But as I said, only 480, now 470, miles from intended landfall: Rodney Bay in St Lucia. Warm up my 747 and have some roast chicken on board... I'm on the way home!

Hmmm, maybe I should make travel plans.

Our weather router says we get classic tradewinds tomorrow. That means 20 knots from behind, which will speed our bonny boat like a bird on the wind.

Not a day too soon, if you ask me. We are sailing at about 3 knots in the really really light stuff, having breakfasted on leftover turkey. The sky is cloudy, so it's not too hot. Nonetheless, here we are.

I imagine that the ARC boats are passing us now, soon to be joined by small twigs and sluggish dorado. We are 844 miles away from St. Lucia. If we get the promised wind, that'll speed by in less than 4 days! Cross your fingers

Our weather router says we get classic tradewinds tomorrow. That means 20 knots from behind, which will speed our bonny boat like a bird on the wind.

Not a day too soon, if you ask me. We are sailing at about 3 knots in the really really light stuff, having breakfasted on leftover turkey. The sky is cloudy, so it's not too hot. Nonetheless, here we are.

I imagine that the ARC boats are passing us now, soon to be joined by small twigs and sluggish dorado. We are 844 miles away from St. Lucia. If we get the promised wind, that'll speed by in less than 4 days! Cross your fingers

Great turkey, smashed taters, giblet gravy. Forgot to plan for punkin pie, but we really didn't need any. Not really. Maybe later.

A boistrous wind propelled us through the early morning, accompanied by some rain. Then, well, nothing. Not a breath. Well, that's not quite true, first the wind took us almost due north for a while.

So we dopped some sails and started the motor. We took the opportunity to examine the (current) main halyard, found it to be not bearing up well on its stripped portion, and so cut it off so that the sail is now up under all good rope. Aren't we clever?

We believe we have somehow offended Bob, the god of boats just not getting any wind. We think Bob takes Poseidon and Aoelus out for beers and then gets them all tipsy so they miss work. So, okay, playtime's over Aeolus. Time to puff out them sails, okay?

It's Thanksgiving morning. Still dark. The wind has lightened a bit but is starting to clock around to the west, where it belongs. For the last 25 hours it's been out of the south.

How the heck does the wind come from the south? Then it was from the southeast. So there we are, close-reaching where there should be trade winds at our back. Whacky.

We bought a turkey at the Corte Ingles before heading out, and have thawed it in the fridge. It has greek, spanish, and arabic writing on it, so it's a turkey that has gotten around. I'll be roasting it and making a side dish of thinly-sliced cabbage salad. As we serve it I'll be humming.... wait for it.... "Turkey in the Slaw"

Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll be here all week.

Two gear fixes today. BOOM-SNAP-"Oh Fudge!" The traveller busted its connecting link to the boom. No problem, much, as a replacement was in stock, so two hours later we are fixed. Why do we have a $500 replacement in stock? Oh, it broke before. My guess: it needs beefing up.

ANd then, BOOM-SNAP="Oh Fudge!" and the halyard for the light nylon code zero sail parted. No problem, much. We rehoisted the sail on the (more appropriate) spinnaker halyard and away we whoosh. Skipper says "fudge" alot. He must really like chocolate, unless I am mishearing. Maybe he likes something else.

Hmm. How long do you roast a 6-kilo turkey? THe butterball hotline seems stupid to call on iridium. I think there's a cookbook here somewhere.

1100 miles to go. They say that the boat can go ten knots, which I would very much like to see! Eleven even. That would be something to be thankful for.

Of course, to have the time, ability, and health to sail across a big ocean, and the love and support of friends and family on dry land is truly something for which I give thanks. Enjoy your dinners. Save me a drumstick.

A full day of motoring finally got us to some wind. Right now we are sailing along pretty nicely, making 7, 8, and 9 knots in 14 knots of friendly breeze. Oddly, it's from the south instead of the northeast, but that is more or less as predicted.

An Austrian boat is within site. 33 feet, ketch, with two aboard. Name is ANIMA. They found our identity through the German Marine Net ham service and hailed us. They are having a tougher time of it than we, responding more poorly to crummy wind conditions, though they are upbeat. We talk to them a couple times a day over VHF, though we will be out of range in a day or so as our speeds are not similar any more. We've made a date to talk on marine SSB on the general contact channel 4146mhz at 1930 zulu.

Gosh radio talk is fun.

Margi has made pizza from scratch, quite nice, though everybody is on dfferent schedules today. We had some fun with the main sail as the halyards have taken a few vacations. All is well now, I think. If not, we have backups for the backups.

The Austrian relayed a weather forecast with light wind tomorrow. Followed by steady tradewinds thereafter. I promise not to whine.

The weather forecast says we'll have wind in about 12 hours, which is surely just about gol-durn time. We are 1500 miles away. and have adopted a more southerly course to avoid more predicted wind-holes.

So, it's peaceful and quiet on the boat, as we run the motor. We have tons of food, water, and fuel, and soon will have wind. Right?

Odysseus had no grib files. We, on the other hand, do, and they inform us that the large windless patch that we are passing through is (a) due to end in about 12 hours' travel and (b) the last major windless patch we are predicted to hit.

Which is good, because we go faster with wind tnan without it under power. Michael Innis trailed out the fishing lines. We hooked a small Mahi-mahi but threw it back. Jeri went up the mast to rig a backup main halyard, as this boat has now eaten a couple of main halyards. THese events did not happen at the same time and are in no way related except insofar as neither would have been a good idea were it windy.

We are about 1700 miles away, so that even if we stand on tippy-toe and stretch our necks we still cannot see St. Lucia. We have probably covered around 1100 miles so far (not a straight line, so the numbers do not add up to the 2700 advertised). Even this far offshore, we see birds and had one in the cabin last night, along with a very confused butterfly.

The birds I understand. The butterfly, ragged and tired, must have blown in on the breeze from Africa. As it was determined to get out through the window, we eased it out to continue its Westward journey, thoughit was more admirable in its determination than its likely accomplishment, I fear.

Plenty of food in the freezer and the fridge. Lots of hard rations too, like rice, pasta, and canned stuff. We're making water and electricity as we motor. Soon, we hope to make sushi too. Time will tell, as the old line goes.

That is to say, we giant men ate chicken.

Why, what did YOU think?

Roast chicken made a nice prelude for a night watch, 8-11 (now much darker that we have changed our clocks).

What do we do on night watch? Well, we watch. We watch the course, we watch the sails (or listen to them when it is too dark to see'em). We watch the speed go up and down.

The lone watchman's friend is surely the ipod and audible book. I must say that the dead of the night is absolutely splendid for listening to The Iliad by some guy named Homer (Not donuts Homer, Greek Homer). It takes a while, several hours actually, to get into the swing of it, but this is riveting stuff.

Intersting note to race committees: Achilles had the same problems. For the funereal games of Patrochus, they staged several contests. Running, wrestling, armed combat, boxing. For boxing and the track events, there were clear winners, with trophies given (a really nice cauldroon for first place, a fairly nice female slave for second). When it came to wrestling, Odysseus and his opponent were basically tied, and so Achilles had to come up with new trophies of equal value. When it came to the armed combat, (armor, swords, spear) after only a really short time, the crowd started to say something of the nature of "Krafos! Ya aghannahorta fela!" meaning "Crap! Someone could really get hurt here" and so they cancelled the fight and reapportioned the trophies.

Flexibility. That's the thing.

Our weather forecasts show that the best thing to do from where we are at is to head straight for the barn. Which we are more or less doing. Whoosh goes the boat. Arf goes the dog. Arf arf goes the other dog.

THIS BLog is http://cayenne.blogharbor.com
Skipper's blog is http://sv-aphrodite.com

Mine has more references to greek literature, so you will have to pick.

Catamarans to not heel. Not very much. They have a hull on each side that prevents that. The space between, that is where the water rushes through.

Sometimes, a wave is high enough (only about 6 feet) to slap the underside of the hull between the side hulls or "amas." When that happens, it makes a big ol "boom" and shakes the boat. When you are sleeping, it's like having a little kicking person right beside you. Ka-slap. Ka-boom. All night. Complaining has about the same effect.

We got that last night.

On the plus side, we are going faster. On the minus, see above.

We have gybed over to get souther faster. More wind. Faster. More belly slaps!

No more belly slaps. Wind has dropped down again, as predicted. This means that it is quieter, but we have had to resort to two bouts of motoring. Which is nice because it makes more hot water for showers.

And those are nice after a warm cinnamon roll. Made from Scratch by Margi.

We are 800 miles along from Gran Canaria to St. Lucia with about 2000 miles to go. Right now, we have the spinny up and are making about 6.5 knots so... you do the math. No seriously, do the math, it's too much for me to figure out without a shower and a nice cinnamon roll to spur me along.

Spotted flying fish, finally. We are in the tropics now, so we expected them a few days ago. One expired on our deck. Fishie don't fly no more. Fortunately, we found it before the doggies did, so we have been spare that minor indignity.

Swoosh swoosh goes the boat. More tomorrow.

Oh, and we have set our clocks back two hours now that we are REALLY far from London. THis morning, it was still dark at 8am UTC, which is simply unacceptable, so we adjusted the clocks two hours. Mike and I each took an extra hour watch to fill the gap. Coincidentally, "two hours" is how much extra time was needed to thaw the chickens. Which we will roast tonite. Shoulda poked them to see if they were frozen.

Catamarans to not heel. Not very much. They have a hull on each side that prevents that. The space between, that is where the water rushes through.

Sometimes, a wave is high enough (only about 6 feet) to slap the underside of the hull between the side hulls or "amas." When that happens, it makes a big ol "boom" and shakes the boat. When you are sleeping, it's like having a little kicking person right beside you. Ka-slap. Ka-boom. All night. Complaining has about the same effect.

We got that last night.

On the plus side, we are going faster. On the minus, see above.

We have gybed over to get souther faster. More wind. Faster. More belly slaps!

And fore and aft. We were absolutely surrounded by them. What kind? Umm? Atlantic? Speckled grey dolphins with bottley-noses. You tell me.

Turns out, "Dolphins" is one of the many words the dogs know, and they scurry to the side as fast as we primates do to see the spectacle, whimpering excitedly. I fear that they will jump in, creating the legend of the curly Portuguese Water Dogfin, but they are smart enough to stay on the boat (illustrating the difference between their line and the less popular line from the same area (Cao Dom es Tiburon Comida or Dumb Sharkbait Dog).

The wind has moved to the south and built nicely. We are wung out with the code zero to starhoard and the main to port which works fine. There have been suggestions, resisted by the crew, of sailing under spinnaker alone. The spinnaker, a raggedy patchwork evidencing prior experiments, breathes a nylon sigh of relief in its spinnaker bag. We will put it up tomorrow.

We're about 500 miles from Gran Canaria, or 2/9th of the way to St. Lucia. Virtually no traffic out here, though we did just cross paths with a tanker bound for somewhere down the African Coast. We waved, but they were several miles away.

Weather gets a bit nicer every day. Nobody made me eat roasted beets. Things are improving!

Scrabble standings: Me: 2. Everybody else: 0. Muah hah hah hah

A mid-afternoon start got us well away from Gran Canaria before night fell. Phil and Dennis of Souverain were nice enough to run out to the end of the breakwater and take some pictures of us, which was very nice.

Our router had predicted light winds, and that was sort of right, though right now we are scooting along in around 12 knots wind on the beam, which moves us at about seven knots.

We are planning to go faster later.

The dogs spent the first few hours in quiet contemplation of the vast and myriad ways of the sea, as peaceful as one could want in a passage-making dog. This morning, however, they remembered that they are puppies and began crawling all over everything and each other and demanding bites of whatever you are eating, including trail mix. They get none of that of course.

Traffic out here is very light. AIS spotted the San Francisco, a cargo ship bound for Dakar.

Food is good. All is well. Boat does not heel over, which makes people happy!

It's Thursday morning at the aptly-named Sailor's Bar in the waterfront at the "Muelle Desportivo" here in Las Palmas. I have met up with Michael and Jeri aboard Aphrodite to do a 2700-mile crossing to St Lucia. We are awaiting two things: Margi, our fourth crew and, with Margi, an oilpan for the leaky Yanmar. It's a pretty new engine but it got some saltwater and rusted out the bottom.

Not that we'd ever motor. NoooOOOooo. Except right now, right in the middle of the Atlantic, is a peculiar line of windlessness. Almost a speedbump. It occurred to me in the middle of the night last night that that would be a good thing to motor through. Hence the motor. Regardless, we have two of them, as we have two of everything (hulls, jibs, dogs) so we have a backup in case something goes all snafu.

Also here at the marina are the first several score of boats doing the ARC, including friend Phil Stolp and his crew Dennis aboard Souverain. The ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) is an exceptionally well-organized group. The 200 or so boats in the rally will be making the same passage as we, but a few weeks later. We are hoping to beat the rush. Perhaps a dozen boats are doing the same thing; we call ourselves the NARC (Not Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) boats, and someone has announced that there will be an informal chat each night at 7:30 on 4146kHz. I really should find out whether that is AM or PM.

Las Palmas is a fairly large city. Someone said it is one of Spain's larger cities despite being a thousand miles away off the coast of Africa. It's said to be a duty-free island, so that may help. Prices here are among the most reasonable in Europe, except for the part about not actually being in Europe.

The marina is adjacent to the commercial center of town, so there is none of that Old-World charm we found everywhere else immediately to hand. However, it's a short taxi-ride or brisk walk to either the old town (where, you know, Christopher Columbus prepared for some of his trips) or the much prettier beach on the other side of the ithsmus. Said beach is 3km long, lined with myriad modestly-priced restaurants, junque shoppes, and the usual seaside stuff that you find anywhere. A splendid landscape and soft sand do a great deal to lighten the mood imposed by the industrial port just to the north of the recreational marina.

We just MAY go sightseeing in the rented car today. Or we may go stock up. This may depend on the learned opinion of our mechanic. Presuming the language barriers back aboard the catamaran do not prove insurmountable. ("Necessito pan for el acieto." Could end up with a plate of olives. We shall see).

Okay, it's a long lead-in to sailing across the atlantic. but we are having a great time wandering around rome. Yesterday, Sisiine chapel, spanish steps, Tiber river and more. Today, Trevi Fountain, colliseum (not the one in Oakland) and a visit to the Jewish quarter. Truly a trip of biblical proportions. Oh, did I mention a plague of locusts is on its way to the Canary islands? Oh yeahhh.

Okay, we did not do the world's best job recording the Pacific Cup. Now we will do better. Rome to Barcelona aboard the Windsurf, then Canary islands to St. Lucia aboard Aphrodite. I am sure that there will be nothing but free time to blog the heck out of this.

Pictures too, if you are lucky. Or if I am.

Okay, on a reach, we got the best run of our fleet and a bunch of others. Secret to winning.. Be on a reach. And don't hit a whale as one boat did. No damage to either, but startling.

The sun has finally come out to play and the water is warm. We've seen one tropic bird and are fishing for Mahi-mahi. It's getting late, so I think we'll reel in the line.

Tonight for dinner... Cornish Game hens!



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The wind has clocked behind us enough to put up the spinnaker. The Cal 40's, darn them, are about a day ahead, and so got theirs up a day before we did. However, we are making nine knots, more or less, steadily, and expect to start eating into their leads. We are hoping that they see us and get nervous and do something silly.

Like go way too far north or something. We are also hoping for a crab pot to catch them. That would be pretty nice for us too.

John and I had to fiddle with the sail trim a bit to keep from rounding up. Creaky neurons etc impeded the 300+ years combined age in getting this right immediately, but we finally figured it out and are rocketing along straight to Hawaii! Hmm. at 8 knots, with 1300 miles to go, we get there when? Saturday? Nah. No way. But still.... this bears some thinking about.

Food has been great. Tonight: Chicken Biryani. Tomorrow is Cholesterol day, with Scrambled Eggs, Bacon, Steak, and more.

Love to all...



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33N by 129 W. -- Weather has filled in nicely, as I mentioned before. The skies are still grey, but we are making a good 7-8 knots pretty much towrd Hawaii, and that is great. Oh sure, we are near the back of the fleet, but we are gaining on those rascals. See, they went north when we went south, a bit, so now we are going west when they are going southwest. All going to converge in a big mid pacific party.

We hope.

The food has been great: connie sent Chicken Legs and Lasagne, and we started in on NOelle's Mac and Cheese, with visions of Pork Chops and Applesauce in our heads for tonight. We have learned to eat with a sporf, which is a combination spork and knife. Sporf. It's what's for dinner.

From an upcoming press release:

At the daily "Children's Hour," a free-format radio discussion time among the racers, spirits were high as a good breeze had filled in, allowing boats to proceed toward their chosen waypoints with speed. "No Ka Oi is Hawaiian for 'perfectly trimmed spinnaker'" announced a spokesman for No Ka Oi, a Gibsea 43 from Brisbane, CA. A bit later, Tiki Blue (Beneteau 423 from San Francisco) announced the loss of a pair of spinnakers to wind perhaps a bit too boisterous for the choice of course and sail. Repairs are underway.

Also underway, according to reports, are repairs to two heads (marine toilets), two radios, and at least one generator. Unlike in-the-bay racing, ocean racing over long distances calls not only for superior tactics and boat handling skills, but also equipment repair skills, for broken gear will not only slow a boat's progress but also will impair crew comfort and possibly safety. Racers carry a range of backup and overlapping safety gear to assure a safe - if not always swift - passage.
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As you've no doubt gathered from others, the start was a casual romp out into some pretty light stuff. Our light-air tacking angles forced us to choose between a course of around 320 (Alaska) or 200 (Mexico). We took a loop up and over the Farallons, passing Southwest Farallon Island within a quarter mile. The cries of the birds and barks of the sea lions made for a magical moment, alloyed only by the eye kept on the radar, charts, and rocks so as not to end the trip before it began.

Off we went on a Southward course, like birds, too stupid to know that NORTH is the summer direction.

Well, stupid birds or not, south is seeming to work for us. Wind has picked up to a very civilized 10-15 knots in pretty flat (lumpy for the Bay, flat for the ocean) seas. Our food has been great. Chicken, lasagne, zucchini bread this am for brekkies. I am going to hide the Peet's french roast. These guys don't appreciate it.

We have had a great run today and hope to make up our slip in standings. On the other hand, we kicked the bejesus out of Acacia and passed another boat in the afternoon. Only we learned later that Acacia spent three hours freeing herself from a crab pot and the boat we passed was a singlehander (or extremely unpopular skipper) with his main down doing repairs.

Still, we are WAYYY faster than flotsam.






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But first, this message from light winds.

As is my permanent karma, it seems, we will be facing light winds. We'll roll out the staysail and do all we can to get moving, but it may be 24-48 hours before the wind gets decent.

The boat's crammed with food, and we have good spirits. All will be well

And we had such high hopes. The later start should have all but guaranteed us a solid summer pattern. But NoooOOOooo. No, we have some ragtag collection of lows and high, and pixie sticks and chunks of weather chum spewed all over the darned map. Bottom line for a rotund boat like VALIS:

Drift. The good news is that the wind will fill, according to the computer, by Wednesday, but it will be a slow start. The single-handers already know this. 12-hour runs from 5-50 miles are all they are doing. One guy is going sort of backward....

But any day on a boat is a good day. And we have a solid boat, a willing crew, and an eclectic set of chow that will carry across the salty sea.

See you in Kaneohe, okay?

One great thing about the Pacific Cup is the way people help out. Sailing friends and fellow competitors are happy to help out with labor and even the loan of gear. I've been the beneficiary of quite a bit and have been happy to help out with the loan of other stuff. Tomorrow, we lend a pole and car to another boat. As long as we all get there, all is well!

Oh, and we are taking the fishing gear that was given to us last time!

I got me a ride this time, on Valis!
Valis is a Pacific Seacraft 44, A boat made in somewhat the same spirit as Cayenne, but with more room and a shallower keel.

Check out VALIS at http://sailvalis.com/

WH00T!

A slow finish that got slower as we got closer to the finish. As is often the case, the winds lightened up near the line, so we wafted our way across the finish an hour later than we expected. KYC base (why do I keep calling it KFC?) continued to have radio problems, so we were relaying check-ins even as we were making our final approach to the finish.

One minor bit of excitement, there was some debate in the cockpit as to the precise limit of the military exclusion zone around the marine station and Mokumanu Island (aka "the Island of Death" aka the Romulan Nuetral Zone) out of which we are obligated by race rules, Federal Law, and common sense, to stay (they use it for artillery practice, and the Marines were doing an exercise that day). Well, we had it on GPS and we peered out to locate the limiting buoy.

At night it is dark.

And it was night. The mark that I thought was there was not at all visible. It's supposed to be the one with the yellow flashing light. We saw mark "A", but not "B", which was the one we were after. So we turned toward the finish.

Almost immediately, a military plane with really bright lights flies overhead and turns toward us. Kind of made me wish we were flying a US flag (only race flags are allowed while racing). It flew overhead slowly, but returned several times. Okay, it was just someone practicing landings, but they sure look like strafing runs from a tiny boat.

Then Spencer says "hey look at that" or words to that effect. Mark B is there, in black silhouette. On the wrong side of the boat. Problems: its light is out, so we missed it. we could have hit it, since we never noticed it till we were past. we were on the wrong side, and therefore IN the zone of doom. Well, we got out as fast as we could (we were only 100 yards in). We called the Coast Guard to let them know their lights were off, and finished with them about 40 seconds before the finish.

And then we finished. Half-ounce kite flying and crew very happy. More on the finish to follow...

Thanks Lisa!

Many Cayenne photos, plus some pictures that, inexplicably, are not ALL ABOUT ME! But very nice anyway.

Seriously, though, it was a tremendous thing to have a bunch of Corinthians and Friends out on the water wishing us on. I am confident that if you had stayed with us the whole way, we'd have won (especially if, in addition to shouting "good luck" you had shouted "hey stupid, turn SOUTH")

Link: See photos here

"Mommy, why is Unca Michael's star not in front of everyone elses?"
"Well, sweetheart..." Think fast, think fast.. AHA! Use Cayenne's excuse! "Unca Michael and his crew think they know better than the people who predict the weather professionally."
"Huh?"
"They think they can outsmart the weather satelites, and that the trade winds that have been blowing for centuries will change course all of a sudden and blow them all the way to Hawaii!"
"Are they having fun?
"Oh yes! Alchohol makes everything more fun."
"Can we have some alchohol?"
"Not until you crew with Uncle Michael."
"What's that triangle at the end?"
"That's a boat called Sonata."
"Do they have a lot of alchohol, too?"
"Hush now dear. We'll check the standings again tomorrow."
FIRST, LAST OR SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN, WE LOVE YOU!! CAN'T WAIT TO GREET YOU IN HAWAII!!
SAIL SAFE!!!
Sis

We have no idea which of our postings made it to the blog. The same indifferent wind that wafted us with maddening languor toward the Aloha State seems to have denied our blog entries access to the ethersphere.

It may be argued that use of the term ethersphere may have been one fault with our program. However, we cannot fault our loving friends and family for the support that they gave to this effort.

We are going to skirt the coast of Molokai (by skirt, we mean be 15 miles away) to get a little more wind, and then go lickety split for Kaneohe Bay. If there was a webcam, you could watch us. In case there is not, it looks like this:

10 miles away: .
5 miles away: "
2 miles away: #
1 mile away: /)

1 foot away: :*

Our thanks again to our friends and families, those who helped us go and those who let us go. Our sweet spouses for the ways that only they know, and our kids and parents.

Hoping not to leave anyone out, we'd like to single out

David Johnson for taking the reins at CYC, as well as thanking CYC itself
West Marine for sponsoring the race
PCYC and KYC for their countless hours of dedication
Donal Botkin, Bill Schmidt, Steve Saul for volunteer boat labor
Phil and Debra Stolp for struts and the famous "drumroll" shy kite
Jack Bieda for carbon fiber pole and solar panels and other gear, sails, and moral support.
The loaned liferaft, we did not get to use it, and we are thankful for that as well!
Fred Mayo and Cindi Marquez for awesome travel arrangements
Our fellow racers for showing grace and sportsmanship

And Noelle, always.

Michael
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Oh yeahhh. 285 miles to go. Today was a slat-a-thon, with very little wind. We made barely 4 knots and had to work for that. Oh well, more at night, so that is good.

Maybe Wednesday arrival. Maybe Tuesday night. We shall see. The boat is rather quiet tonight, which is a nice change from the slamming sail. We plan to put up the smaller shy kite or the big ounce and a half at about 3 am PDT because that is when the squalls come. Okay, it is late and I need to see if we have mail from sweetie.

Makes postings hard. We finally have wind. More to come

Oh yeahhh. 285 miles to go. Today was a slat-a-thon, with very little wind. We made barely 4 knots and had to work for that. Oh well, more at night, so that is good.

Maybe Wednesday arrival. Maybe Tuesday night. We shall see. The boat is rather quiet tonight, which is a nice change from the slamming sail. We plan to put up the smaller shy kite or the big ounce and a half at about 3 am PDT because that is when the squalls come. Okay, it is late and I need to see if we have mail from sweetie.

Wind!

Windy wind wind. Blow me down. Shake me up.

Finally we got some tradewinds and are blowing along at a nice 8 knots over ground. As far as we are concerned THIS is where the race begins and if the other boats had a smidgen of decency, they would come back and start with us.

Actually, if you look at the grib files, you may note an interesting thing. Today, there is no wind to our north. Tomorrow, no wind to our south. That is right, for the next 24 hours, Cayenne is sailing a PERFECT COURSE!!! We will pause now to accept your plaudits.

Thank you. We are looking at a Tuesday or early Wednesday arrival, with the barest hope for a Monday Night. To do so would require consistent winds till then, which seems less than entirely likely. But we will see.

We've had several rain showers, which makes hanging out in the cockpit less than nice, but does clean the boat up as well as some of the crew. Chicken Cordon Bleu (it says so on the label) with rice and green beans for dinner. Tomorrow is Bastille Day, so we shall go about with French Accents and eat French Fries and French Dip. There may be some kissing among the married couples, in which case I shall provide an extra allotment of water for brushing teeth.

A bientot et ohh la la!

Well, we cashed in our chips and took a big hitch south. Stan (whom we are not smarter than) Honey says that if you do this, well, you have probably lost. And sure enough, although we have hopes for all of our competitors meeting with giant squids who grab their rudders, slow them down and generally impede them, many misspent hours over fried calamari and martinis have irreparably damaged relations between us and the squiddy denizens of the sea.

However, the weather, continuing its squirrelly behavior, looks to go very light just before the Sandwich Islands, which may have the effect of generally compressing the fleet.

Nothing has gotten broken. Nothing tore. This is not the worst thing in the world, and we have as much water as we can possibly use!

For fun, we are considering the means of fashioning a fish hook. We did not bring one, but now have a real taste for fresh fishmeat. Best guess is to unroll a "ring-ding", sharpen it, and put a barb on it. If only we had a small stuffed chicken to use as a lure.....

Making 6.1 knots straight for Kaneohe. Well, actually toward the finish. Welll, actually toward the edge of the military exclusion zone two miles away from the finish, then we turn and finish in a mere 938 miles.

Double post