Pacific Ocean

08:30 Anchors away, mild amount of sand, but no problems. The Bay was clear but as we left the bay the fog engulfed us. The GPS and radar worked well, and we also followed a commercial fishing boat for a while. We motor/sailed untill midnight, then turned off the motor, and have been sailing ever sense. We have seen some wildlife: 2 Whales, small pod of dolphins (that came up to the bow and played for a while), sea gulls, and a few albatross flying around. The seas are quite lumpy, with 22 knot winds, 10' swell every 7 seconds (very steep), and wind waves galore. It makes it hard to do anything but sit. Susan and I take turns being on watch up in the cockpit, while the other one rests or sleeps. Auto, our autopilot has done the majority of steering, but yesterday while susan was on watch, he just shut off and said no power. This was a complete surprise to both of us as the boat rounded up into the wind faster than Susan could get back to the helm and self steer. All is good now, just turned off and on the circuit breaker to the autopilot and Auto was once again happy steering the boat. Last night was very interesting, for as the sun set the full moon rose. No fog or clouds to obscure the moon light, as it bounced off the waves and into the cockpit. We did encounter crab pots, and commercial fishing boats during the night. I did turn away from one of them as they were getting to close. Susan wanted you to know that as a large ship gets closer and closer it looks like the Sun is coming up, with all their lights. It was a long night with all the rocking, one is not able to stay put in their bed. Today, still rocking with 22 knot winds, big swells and lots of white caps. We were able to see mount Olympus with its snow covered peaks. And today we can see the hills along the shore from 22 miles out to sea. We traveled 175 nm in 24 hours with about half sailing no motor.

Stats: GPS 45.09.613N 124.31.016W, Sea Temp 55.4, Air Temp 62, Wind Speed 19.2 knots.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com