This is more like it. Moderate sized swells, light winds – just 10 knots from the west – and we’re a little more than a day from the barn. Been averaging close to 11 knots for the past 24 hours at the same RPMs that were yielding 9.7 knots yesterday.

We’re into our pre-arrival routine. Starting to clean inside and out. We’ll wipe down all of the bright work, give the boat a good vacuum, wash and dry the contents of the laundry hamper.

We’ve become accustomed to the luxury of a watermaker. Here is one manifestation of the decadence that comes with these devices: Rinsing the boat with fresh water! This is normally done every couple of days, but we’ve had so much water flying around on deck, we have not done as much as usual on this trip.

Speaking of water on deck, we are pleased to report none of it has made its way below. That is what we expect, of course. We work very hard at designing and detailing boats that do not leak. But you never know for sure until Poseidon dishes up a real-world test.

We’ve been using these green bags (purchased at a supermarket) to keep fruits and veggies longer in the fridge. Those bananas on top are 10 days old – and look like they could go another week. Other items seem to last twice or three times as long as when they are simply placed in the fridge.

The freezers continue to supply key ingredients, like these frozen New Zealand blueberries. Not only do blueberries taste good, but they have healthy side effects as well.

On the other hand, we’re down to the last piece of apple cake, and the brownies were finished last night, so it is definitely time to bring this passage to a close.

Here’s a tip for getting to sleep when you’re off watch. Our daughter Sarah told us that applying lavender oil to the soles of the feet helps one to fall asleep. So, we picked up some in the health food store in Honolulu. It works!

Weather between here and the coast looks lovely. The cut-off low that has been wetting Southern California and Northern Mexico is filling and due to move on during the next 24 hours. (This disturbance showed up two days ago on the 96-hour 500mb fax). We expect the present benign weather to accompany us for the balance of the voyage.

Last night, during dinner, the two of us were discussing the passage so far. Nothing like moderate weather to get us to thinking. We realize now that we made some routing mistakes on this passage.

Our training, from 250,000 miles of sailing, is to (almost) always head for the destination. Major deviations rarely pay off. If the weather is really adverse, it is usually better to heave to and wait for improving conditions, and then proceed (as opposed to heading off in a different direction).

Wind Horse has the ability to keep pointing at the mark, regardless of conditions. She can maintain high average speeds while doing so. You only have to look at our progress on this passage to see that. Early on, four days into the trip, we had a "seam" of relatively smooth water and light winds to the north. We discussed taking this up to a latitude of 35 or 36 degrees before turning east, but decided instead to head slightly above our course – essentially almost direct to the coast. The chosen approach was shorter by a couple of hundred miles and, since we were able to maintain a healthy average rate of speed, has paid off in terms of fuel consumed and time on passage.

On the other hand, had we added those additional miles to the trip, we would have had a much easier passage once we did turn east. Winds would have been less on the nose, and our angle to the crossing seas would have been better. As a result, for the same engine loading (and therefore fuel burn) we would have moved at something like 1/2 to 3/4 of a knot faster. The extra distance would have been compensated for to some degree by this increased speed.

The bottom line to this discussion is that we would have been much more comfortable. If the cost of this comfort was just 12 hours in passage time, in hindsight we would have happily traded the time for the comfort – part of the learning curve in using Wind Horse’s abilities.

We’ve had remarkably few problems with the boat since completing sea trials. Aside from the fuel injection pump seal, and faulty hydraulic steering cylinder design, we’ve had a trouble-free passage. We now need to add one more item to the list. Yesterday, as the sea state moderated, we started to notice a mechanical thumping noise. It had probably been there for some time, but with all the wave bangs going on, this sound and vibration was lost. It did not take long to find that it was coming from the port stabilizer fin. Centering the fins stopped whatever was causing the problem. Thinking maybe we’d picked up some debris, we stopped the boat and had a good look. Both fins looked clean. We then backed down, but nothing seemed to change.

A call on the Iridium satellite phone to Don Redding at NAIAD revealed that this banging was probably due to a faulty heading sensor on the fin. The sensor is sticking as the fin comes past center, and when it releases, we get this jerk and bang. You can actually feel the fin jerk now that the wave action has been reduced. And it may be that the jerky motion we’ve been feeling with off-axis waves impacting the bow has been due to this sensor. We’ll need to deal with this when we get to port.

Northern Lights has some engineering to do on their sound shield latches. We were forced to add some extra holding power to keep the panels in place. We’ll probably make up a set of straps for future use (they would look a little more finished – the green tape clashes with the rest of the engine room decor).

If you look closely under the small pump, top center of the photo, you will see a yellow stain on the oil-absorbing mat. We have a very small leak either on one of the fittings coming out of the transmission pump housing, or from the pump itself. We’ll find this shortly. The point we wanted to make is that without the mat, we probably would have missed the leak. The transmission oil would not have shown up on the hull plating until the leak had become much bigger.

This is the cover over one of the PYI prop shaft packing glands. The salt residue indicates we’ve been getting a bit of weepage from the face seal. This may or may not be normal, given that we’ve just covered several thousand miles, much of it bouncy, as you know. Same point as above – the time to check it out is now, before it becomes a bigger problem.

Finally, a mystery for you. Check out the pipe running to the right of the alternator drive belt. This grayish black pipe is actually painted white like the rest of the engine. It is coated with a very fine layer of soot-like material, which we assume to be drive belt dust, or possibly some form of oil. We see this on both engines. The surrounding area is relatively clean (it has been 200 engine hours since we wiped down this area). For some reason these pipes, which carry salt water from the engine heat exchanger to the transmission oil cooler, are attracting this coating. There is a zinc fitting at the front end of the manifold to which the pipe attaches, so maybe an electrical differential is causing this. Anybody out there have experience with this?