Current position as of 0000 UTC July 21st is 42° 00’ N 146° 58’ W Current Heading: 35°M Total distance made good (DMG) = 1514 nm DMG last 24hrs (0000UTC-0000UTC) = 122 nm Engine hours = 0 Avg true wind speed (TWS) = 11 kts Avg speed over the ground (SOG) = 5.7 kts Avg swells = 2.9 ft Recap of Day 17 Now that we have crossed latitude 40 this is where we can hope to start seeing some westerlies to help us head more east into the PNW and we were not dissapointed with the wind shifting around and blowing right out of the west we brought down our whisker pole and kept the wind ever so slightly forward of the beam to get our three sails flying. The days have turned grey and we are not seeing too much sun any longer, the seas look to be building and have that dark blue frothy look to them that you picture when you think of northern and southern oceans. We miss the calm almost perfect dailing sailing along the Central American coast to only dive in at an anchorage bathe and spear some dinner. For around the last 700 miles we have been sailing through the same giant garbage area as last time on Makara, we pass so much rubbish floating around out here and we have done our best to pick some up when it is safe and we can find a home on board. The easiest way for us to collect rubbish is by catching it in our fishing lines, usually plastic netting of some kind and even though the floating rubbish is anything from shoes to disposible coffee cup lids but by far the majority is commerical ghost fishing equipment. We regularly see all sorts of fishing floats, nets and styrofoam marker bouy’s they are easy to spot and some have gathered some serious growth. Makes us think about how difficult it really is to attempt to collect and the solution needs to be in preventitive measures and limit what ends up in the oceans in the first place, like we always say plastic is great but also a killer. For dinner I made a shepards pie with some of our last remaining steak we had canned in Costa Rica but was not pleased with the result, while the filling was delicious the crust I just made up with some flour, butter and beef drippings and I didn’t get the ratios right which gave us a tasty but tough crust. On top of that my mashed potatoes just didn’t look right, I guess that I should have used the real potatoes and not the instant. Throughout most of the evening the wind became extremely variable shifting up to 20 degrees and 5 to 15 kts every 20 minutes, it was certainly very strange to be calm for brief periods then to have the wind howl down and send us hurtling forward the next. By late evening we where able to find consistent winds to get Dan back to his driving duties and we had a good day in all, now with two back to back 100+ mile days we feel like we are on the second half with barely over 1000 NM to the straits entrance. Cheers, Ty & Hillary
