Day: 18 July 2018

Day 29, Wed 18th July. 50-37N, 151-55W. Daily Run: 68 NM. Weather: 5-10 Knots SE, Sunny and cold, 911 NM to go
The wind was meant to pick up a little in the night but it didn’t. So we spent the last 24 hours basically drifting around, in roughly a north easterly direction. The sea was very calm, but otherwise it was quite grey and cold. The Pacific high has taken a dislike to us and seems to be heading north and will park itself right between us and our destination in a few days time. The picture I didn’t send yesterday shows this. I forgot to attach the picture, but after I retried to send it the server told me it was too large to send over the link. I spent some time reducing it’s size to about 40K, but the server said it was still 100K, I think that might be due to mime encoding? So this morning the sun is shining, the sea is very calm, and while I sat in the cockpit drinking my morning coffee the wind just picked up, strangely from the SE, which isn’t in the forecast at all, so as soon as I finished my coffee, back up went the main, down with the spinnaker pole (Sounds like a revolutionary chant), and out with the genoa. We are close reaching now making 5-6 knots in an ENE direction. I’m going a little north of the high, and will review if we can sail through it over the next couple of days, we have a choice of drifting slowly through, which could take 3-4 days, or going right up north to Alaska, possibly to Kodiak, then following the coast all the way down to Seattle, that’s quite appealing.
The calm weather is allowing me to do a few jobs, when I came to lower the mainsail yesterday, on account of there being no wind, but enough swell to have the main slopping in and out, I found it jammed halfway down. I think I already mentioned my repair to the slide on the mainsail headboard, and how it only affected putting the sail up, well think again Paul. The lack of a slide at the top had caused the next slide to jam in the track. So up the mast I went. Kathy wasn’t happy with this, I wasn’t mad either as with the mainsail still being halfway up I had to climb the mast from the forward/bow side, which isn’t as easy to get onto, and has many obstacles like the spiniker pole, radar reflector and radar itself. Still it was ok until some large swell came along while I was at the top of the sail. All I can say is my grip reflexes work well. With a bit of jiggling at the top of the sail, and Kathy tugging at the bottom, the sail suddenly came free and fell down the mast into the boom bag. 
Later I repaired the slide, and this time I filed the metal headboard slot so it was a round edge where the slide attaches and hopefully this will stop it cutting the tape that secures it to the slide. I also replaced my patches on the batten pockets that had worn through, they seem to have stopped any more damage to the mainsail, along with the water pipe insulation tubes I have stuck onto the shrouds. So all in all, the boat is back to fully functional again.
Today is lovely and sunny, we are pushing along in a calm sea making good speed towards Canada, and I have said to Kathy that if we get becalmed, as likely, in the high, then we can make good use of the time to clean the boat, get the decks brilliant white, the stainless shiny and I might do some varnishing, the boat needs some attention. I’m not sure Kathy is fully onboard (no pun intended) with this plan yet.
Two weeks ago we stopped taking forecasts from Japan and moved over to Honolulu, now we have moved to PT Reyes, California, who produce excellent surface pressure charts and forecasts for this area.
The distance to go has moved down a lot, and is now close to 910 NM, this is mostly due to changing our destination to the top of Vancouver Island, Canada.
Paul Collister