Time: 0615 local
Lat: 32 38
Log: 152 38
Distance from Hawaii: 737
Distance to Golden Gate: 1503
24 hour distance made good: 110.4 nautical miles

First the good news: Drifting around in light winds is over, at least for now. The boat and crew are doing well. We are headed back directly on the great circle route to San Francisco like a horse home to the barn, making speeds of 6 to 7 knots.

Now the other news: For the last 14 hours we have been on a tight close reach in 30 knots of wind into seas of 6 feet every 5 seconds. It is cold (50F) and cloudy. It is safe to say we are out of the tropics! The boat regularly takes green water over the bow, most of which doesn’t reach the cockpit.

The weather model are real no help in forecasting when conditions might moderate, because none of the four models predict a wind of greater than 15 knots!

In other news, for most of yesterday afternoon we were entertained by a Bryard’s whale who seemed captivated by the boat as we moved along at 3 knots in calm seas. Not huge as whales go, maybe 30 or 40 feet, he (she?) still made an intimidating playmate when he’d surface as close as 50 feet away. He would circle the boat, dive and disappear for a few minutes, surface, come back to the boat, over and over.