Day 10 - Half Way Party!

We've already had two half-way parties: one for getting half-way to our target latitude, and one for getting half-way to our projected total time at sea. Today is the day when our GPS indicated that we were equally distant from the Golden Gate Bridge and Makani Kai Marina. So Bill wanted to me to quote a famous person on this topic: "It is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is the end of the beginning." ~~ Winston Churchill.

Specifically, at 07:58:58 this morning, we noted that we were 1089 miles from both the Golden Gate Bridge and Makani Kai Marina. Kathy already passed the cookies and cream candies. Coffee candies to come later, along with some bubbley, and maybe pictures. Stay tuned.

Yesterday, I forgot to post the pictures that accompanied the "Guest Blogger" item. Here they are.

Sailing yesterday afternoon was a blast. During my watch, the wind started to build and our speed started to climb. By about 5:30, we had been screaming along at about 8.5 knots for about an hour. But sunset was coming and we decided to reef for the night. So we furled the jib, started the motor, headed up about 50 degrees, and Bill and Kate went forward to work on the reef, all while the boat was bouncing and swerving in the swell. Just as we were wrapping up, a cargo ship came over the horizon and hailed us on the VHF. We were busy, so we ignored the first few calls, but eventually, I was free to go below and call him back. On the other end of the line was a very polite man who spoke perfect English with what sounded like an Indian or Pakistani accent. We was calling to ask if we were OK. I guess he had seen our wild course changes on his radar and maybe even used powerful binoculars to see Bill and Kate dancing on the foredeck and concluded that we might be in some difficulty. I assured him we were completely normal sailors performing a completely normal maneuver to reduce our speed. And I thanked him for his concern. He assured me that his vessel would pass well ahead of ours and wished us a good evening and a good voyage. "Gee, what a nice guy!" ~~ Madeline Kahn.

Hopefully, we'll have an extra blog item today, after the party. ~~Chris

At 6/10/2010 4:45 PM (utc) our position was 35°42.05'N 145°09.52'W