Day 10, 30th Jun. 37-58N, 161-32E. Daily Run: 143 NM. Weather: Foggy and swelly. 3224 NM to go

Day 10, 30th Jun. 37-58N, 161-32E. Daily Run: 143 NM. Weather: Foggy and swelly. 3224 NM to go
This is going to get boring soon, another good daily run of 143 miles, the sky is pretty grey with fog reducing visibility to a mile or so. We should be keeping a diligent lookout, but we mostly leave that to the AIS now. I think statistically the chances of us hitting another boat are pretty low, much more likely we would hit some debris in the water. I believe bits of Fukushima are still floating around out here. 
I did my usual check of the boat yesterday morning, mostly looking for chafe, and was a bit disappointed to find my once brilliant solution to a broken mast-spinnaker pole fitting, was actually sawing its way through the spinnaker pole end fitting. It had cut in about 5mm and if left alone would be through to the other side in no time at all. I squeezed a bit of leather into the area it was cutting and checking this morning, that seems to have fixed it. I’m going to rig the pole up differently though, that fitting was not intended for the job. Instead I’m thinking of running a rope from the fitting to the samson post, with a place, a foot in front of the mast, where I can attach the spinnaker pole, if I use a heavy rope, this should work out ok. We will see.
We gybed yesterday onto a port gybe and are being propelled by an overtaking low which may get a little stronger tonight, but then reduce, the forecasts predict light headwinds then becalming for a couple of days next week, but I have given up on these forecasts for anything more than 1 day ahead. Perhaps when we are further away from the Asian continent things might settle down. Right now a new typhoon (1807) has kicked off in the Philippines and is heading for southern Japan and onto S Korea. It’s quite possible we will meet up with it in a week or so when it has died out and just become another east heading low. Right now it poses no threat to us. We have turned onto the great circle path directly to the entrance to the straits of Juan de Fuca at Cape Flattery.
My main excitement today has been that I fixed the drawers in the galley, they had been sticking and getting worse each day, I think because they are wooden runners in wooden grooves, the more damp atmosphere causes the problem due to the wood swelling a little. It’s quite pleasant sitting on the cabin sole (floor) while doing a spot of carpentry 1000 miles out into the Pacific ocean. The problem was that the runners had been modified so they were closer together at the rear, making them grip more as the drawers went in. I only mention this because I hate poor engineering, and I suspect this mod was made to stop the drawers sliding out in a rough sea. That did work, but also prevented them from being opened north of 40deg, and I suspect that the reason the mod was done, was because the actual catches that are meant to stop them sliding out were broken. I, with the help of Tim a while ago fixed these catches and now I have removed the packing, everything works wonderfully. See I told you it would get boring soon.
We listen to the news on the BBC world service each night for 10 minutes, this being our only source of information on whats going on in the world, now it’s the weekend perhaps we will hear how England are getting on in the world cup. They have been absent from the news all week, is this down to shame we wonder? We also play a history card game that Max, our friend back in Birkenhead gave us as a present, some time ago, but specifically for our long passages. you basically hold four cards, more if you are clever, and each card has a historic event but the date of the event is on the rear of the card. The object of the game is to place your events in historic order, i.e. was the battle of Agincourt before or after the moon landing, I got that one right. Obviously some of the events are a little harder than that. So I hope that conveys some of the thrills of ocean crossings, card games and fixing the kitchen drawers!
Paul Collister