1700 PST. We’re 2350 miles from San Diego, just off the Northern border of Costa Rica. Conditions have improved markedly during the day. The lumpy sea on the nose has subsided and the wind has backed to 250 True – or a shy beating angle. We’re motorsailing comfortable at 10.5 to 11 knots, losing about a knot to current (which is a hell of a lot better than the two knots against us yesterday), with just the main drawing (but we’re thinking about adding some sail area).

BEOWULF and crew are in fine spirits tonight. We’ve just finished a steak-and-mushroom dinner, fresh salad and a bit of fruit. Before long we’ll fire up the popcorn machine and settle down to a movie. Now, if we were heading for the Marquesas and the S.Pacific, and if Sacramento had scored just one more point during regulation play, everything would be perfect.

The weather situation continues to be unsettled in a tropical sense. The disturbance we were watching to the NW now looks like it will not develop. Commander’s Weather tells us that there is a strong SW flow at the 200mb level (jet stream) which will prevent any significant deepening. On the other hand, there’s a huge area of low pressure centered over us – although the barometer is giving barely a hint of this – and a tropical wave due in the next few days into this area might kick something off.

The earliest this is supposed to happen would be the weekend – which means early next week before the system would spin up into something dangerous.

This is where the weather logic gets tricky. We do not mind a tropical storm system to our north or northwest, where we can trail it. But we do not want one of these systems trailing us! By Saturday we should be off Acapuluco, Mexico – about 950 miles from our present location. If this new system is looking like it might kick off, we’ll probably stop for a day or two until the tropical development sorts itself out.