Day 31, Fri 20th July. 51-39N, 145-58W. Daily Run: 121 NM. Weather: 8-12 Knots ESE, Sunny and cold, 680 NM to go

Day 31, Fri 20th July. 51-39N, 145-58W. Daily Run: 121 NM. Weather: 8-12 Knots ESE, Sunny and cold, 680 NM to go
The barometer is reading 1034mb which is as high as I have ever seen it go, this is because of the pacific high. We are crossing it to the north right now, and despite the wide spacing of the 4mb isobars here, indicating low wind, we are seeing around 10 knots most of the time and a very calm sea. Consequently it’s lovely sailing, we are gliding along at around 5-6 knots with a full set of sails up. This morning we hit a pocket of still air and drifted north for an hour, I started the engine to push us on a bit, in the hope wind would arrive, and also to get some hot water made for the shower, then just an hour later the wind returned and we have had a lovely calm sail since.
Yesterday I repaired the homocidal genoa sheet car/block. It used a special bolt/screw to keep it all together, basically it is a piece of studding 1” long and maybe 1/4” diameter, with an imperial thread, and no head, but a hex recess in the end for an allen key, I suppose thinking about it, it’s a very long grub screw. This had somehow left the block and fled overboard. My skills don’t extend to fabricating one of these, but I did find a bolt I could cut down to size, and once fitted I filled the head down so it wouldn’t chafe the sheet, that’s the theory anyway. However fitting it all back together presented another problem, as the base of the car , a substantial steel moulding had been bent by the forces acting on it so that the holes no longer aligned for the steel rod that the block is fixed to. Out came the heavy tools to bash it back to shape, and now it’s all together and should be good for some time. I will replace it as soon as I can though.
That was about the total of my activities yesterday, I have given up trying to understand the weather forecasts, The detail on the current situation is always quite accurate when I download the forecasts, but never what they said it would be 12 hours prior. I just tend to go for the bigger picture now, we will follow this high, heading mostly easterly now. And as we go east the wind should veer , we gan gybe, and head directly to the North of Vancouver Island, we may well be becalmed for a day or two over the next few days, but by early next week we should be on the home run proper, hopefully this is our last Friday at sea.
All other systems are running fine, we are getting more sunshine now and the batteries are getting their full charge before midday.
Paul Collister