The Very Chilly Northern Pacific 23 May 2012 21:19 48N29 177W19

Greetngs across to the Pacific Northwest! I’m thankful that these latitude 40s aren’t as roaring as their southern brethren were last year. We’ve had good wind, 15-20 knots, upwind sailing, but very little swell so it’s been comfortable. We’ve only had to reef a few times. Our new fleece lined rubber fishermen gloves were a happy Hawaiian acquisition for that job.

We’ve made it over that hump where the navigation software flashes “3-4 days ETA” for days when we knew it was really more like 6-7. It’s now down to flashing a steady 1.5-2.5 days, and we are oh so ready to leap around on land.

Radio email is getting harder and harder to receive and transmit. When we arrive, I’m not sure how easy it will be to get signal especially with land masses around. And it will be a few weeks before we get to Dutch Harbor our first likely chance at internet. So don’t worry if we go silent for awhile soon. I’ll try to be better about writing what we see when we get to land this time and save it up for when we are able to send email easily again. I know many of you are as curious as we are about this remote corner of the earth.

I know it’s summertime up here, but we’ve all gone into hibernation, and are hiding in our quilts. It feels like my days are spent either on watch, sleeping or trying to get to sleep. But I am feeling well rested, I stay close to a blanket though even on watch. When we’re anchored we can turn the heaters on, but we’ll have to watch our fuel consumption since they are propane, and eating takes priority over a toasty cabin till next we refuel.

xoxomo