Captains Blog Sea Date July,6, 2009

Captains Blog Sea Date July, 6, 2009
Days at sea:7
current position: Lat. 23'40 Long. 128'35
Distance in 24 hours: 190
Average speed:7.9k
Apparent wind: 5k
True wind: ? 11k ?
Water temp. 76.6f
Cloud cover: 100%

Alright the past day of sailing has been good to us. the wind is steady, right on our quarter, and pushing us along nicely. the swell has picked up a bit making it easer to surf. you got to love it!!! we still have the pink and white patch work spin up. We call it the quilt or Fankinstine. this spinnaker has more patch cloth then original cloth, its kind of funny, no the funny part is that we have a few new sails down below, but the quilt is doing great, so why mess with a good thing.
not much to report on our end. yesterday was the day of communication, i sat and talked with Alaska Eagle, the communication boat, during liars net. liars net, or happy hour, is an informal radio check in at 1900, on 4A. They call liars net because you can make up all kinds of crap about the weather you are in and the speed you are making and its expected. usually there are lots of people talking so i just listen. but last night no one was around so i called in and talked with the communication boat, i cant remember the mans name that im talking to but he is always very nice. we had a bad copy so we switched to 8A, and it was like we were in the same room. we talked about all the fireworks we fired off for the forth and the lobster dinner we just had and so on. after talking to him i tried to give my dads friend Ron Ellis a call on 12A, it was just a shoot in the dark as we had not arranged this, but what do you know he came back loud and clear, but after that first transmition i could not understand a thing other then him saying, at least we know it works.
Richard made a killer MRE dinner of what i think my have been baked beans and ham or possibly cat, with herb mashed potatoes and peas, it was not half bad. after dinner we all settled in, i was just about to fall asleep when my mom poked her head in the hatch to let me know there was a boat off our starboard quarter. i checked it out, you could tell from the lights that it was another sail boat on the same tack as us. it was for sure a transpac racer, and a big boy because they were moving pretty good. i gave up a long time ago trying to call fellow transpac racers, they never answer and i have to tell you it really irritates me. i monitor 16 incase of an emergency everyone else should too. anyways i crawled back into my bunk and just as i was getting comfortable, what do you know, they hailed us on the VHF. we switched from 16 to 68. it was Criminal Mischief. we talked for awhile about how fricken happy we were to be back in the wind and surfing our way to Hawaii. i told him that we were sailing along pretty well at about 7.5k and he came back with there boat speed of 12 to 13k, i told him how sorry i felt for him and that since they were going to get there before us they had to come to our welcome party. he said Lindsey we know all about it, its at the WYC and well be there. I don't recall telling him my name or that the party is at WYC so i guess word has gotten out that Julie Downes is a kick ass party planner!!!!! Anyways i suited up for watch sat on deck and Mike and i did a little mores code in to the main sail. Criminal Mischief did some light show back at us, but it didn't make sense to me. then they were off into the wild blue yonder, with us trailing behind on the same course. I will have you know that yesterday they were last in there division and today, yes after following us, they move up 3 standings.
This afternoon Chase got the sat phone up and ready for our reporter friend Ron from KNX 10.70 to call. the phone did a little chirp thing and i answered it Papa Johns Pacific Ocean, we did about a 5 minute interview on how things are going so far. (pictured) i asked him to post a comment letting everyone know how they can listen to it on the net, so look out for that. it is always nice talking to you Ron, thank you for calling and for the news updates.
i think that is it for now, LA