5:00pm PDT 43 47.8N, 134 37.2W 494.7 Nautical Miles to Neah Bay

Laundry Day on Capaz

From Brad:
First off, apologies for the delayed entry into this blog. We've had some computer issues that we have been working through. The bottom line, without naming names, an errant wave caused one of the crew, of this fine yacht Capaz, to loose their footing. Said crew and/or skipper slid across the salon emptied the contents of his or her carbonated high fructose beverage onto the computer at the nav station. The crew member then fell backwards into the pass through from the salon to the aft cabin. No worries, as the crew member was not permanently injured. This cannot be said of the computer, however. We do have a backup computer and certainly could have communicated earlier, but efforts have been geared towards trying to make the Dell computer (yes, Bryce and Austin, it's the one you use) work again. The computer itself works. In fact, I am typing on it right now. It's the screen that has taken the brunt of the soda pop attack (I believe the offending drink was a 7up). After hours of work by Brian (our version of McGyver), dismantling the machine to dry out (sorry we didn't think to take pictures) re-assembly, then when the screen still did not work we transferred email to the backup computer which required more troubleshooting. In the end, it looked like we could send and receive email using the other machine and in fact, did. We decided that it was going to be too cumbersome to use and went to plan C which is to use the Dell but have it hooked up to the flat screen at the chart table and rigged to a remote keyboard and mouse. This is working just fine for now. We can run the navigation software and email software all on the same machine and have removed all computers from the top of the chart table to help prevent further.......... "incidents".
Enough about computers. Yesterday was a grand day. We motor sailed for most daylight hours in little or no wind. Something strange happened. It all started when I decided to clean the floors. Next thing I see is that Brian has showered and done laundry and set it out to dry. I pulled everything out of the forward cabin. It had gotten damp up there with the days of beating and pulled out cushions, sails etc to dry. Everyone got into the spirit and we aired out the boat. I tested the heat, which worked and ran it for couple of hours which helped to dry out things below. Things just got a lot more civilized which was nice. It wasn't exactly sunny. There was low almost fog at water level. Occasionally, the sun would break through.
During the day, Eric worked on cooking a beef stew. After the big clean and dry out, we treated ourselves to a movie. Eric discovered that he had brought a copy of "Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back" and we plugged it into the flat screen and piped it through the stereo. Kurt had never seen the movie. I didn't think this was possible. Hasn't everyone in the US, if not the world seen the Star Wars movies? Well, anyway it was fun to see his reaction to the movie, laughing at lines I have long since memorized and reacting to surprise situations, like when the minok's attack the Millennium Falcon when inside the cave that turns out to be a big space eel thing. After the movie, we had dinner. The stew was perfect. Eric cooks a killer beef stew. We all consumed copious amounts leaving sparse left overs that were quickly consumed today.
At some point late in the day the winds started to pick up again. We hoisted the spinnaker (I believe we paused the movie to do this) and sailed for a few hours under spinnaker. The wind died again and we motor sailed until I came on watch at 10:30pm HST (1:30am PDT). The wind had filled in on the beam so I unfurled the jib shut down the engine and we sailed through the night. Sometime in the morning, while I was sleeping, the spinnaker went up again and we have been sailing all day under spinnaker. Life is good.
In an email from PJ, she asked what it was were were craving. And....being on a boat in the middle of the ocean with no women aboard there is the obvious answer to this question. But since this is a family oriented BLOG, I will leave it at that. We really have been eating extremely well. We provisioned, or you might even say over provisioned well. So far, what we have come up with is mostly food related. Brian and I agree that pizza would be a very good thing right now. Kurt would like some chocolate ice cream. I am personally craving the company of my family the most.
That's the latest from Capaz. Thank you to all who are sending us email. It is great to hear from you!
Cheers!