Happy Independence day! 11:20am PDT 45 09.7 N, 132 29.8W 372 nautical miles to Neah Bay

Brad Setting off "Fireworks"
From Brad:
I suppose not many people will be reading this log today as they will be out doing BBQ's or scoping their place to watch the fireworks this evening. However, we would like to invite everyone to a 4th of July celebration on Capaz. Meet us at 45 57.8N, 131 01.9W at 10pm tonight for a fireworks display and BBQ. I hope you all can make it. In all seriousness, Happy 4th Everyone!
Our latitude is now a little north of Salem, Oregon and we are under 400 miles to entering the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Capaz smells home and is pointing there, making excellent speed. The wind is currently blowing in the low 20's just aft of there beam, perfect conditions for Capaz to take advantage of her long waterline. Right now, we are probably averaging somewhere in the low 8 knots.
It hasn't always been this way. Yesterday evening, we took the spinnaker down at sundown and unrolled the headsail out on a pole going wing on wing. Our average speed was probably a little less than if we were to motor, but fast enough to keep sailing. At this point, we were on port gybe. As the watch system started, the wind had shifted enough that I elected to put in a gybe. We executed this maneuvers like the fine tuned racers that we are and 20 minutes later we had the boat on starboard jibe with the headsail on the pole. At first we had to sail to the right of a direct line to home. The navigator (that's me) said with confidence that the wind would shift and we would be able to point her at the barn later in the evening. This turned out to be the case. In fact the wind shifted so much that when I came on for my 2.5 hours on deck.....well, below deck, we took the pole off and let the jib fly on the leeward side, allowing us to steer up and directly towards home. For all you non-sailors out there who have no idea what I'm talking about, tough, I'm not going to explain. :-)
Another highlight since the last log entry is the watching of the movie 3:10 to Yuma, an entertaining western starring Russel Crow. We didn't do anything fancy for dinner, more or less fending for ourselves. It was a good night for sleeping. The boat motion was relatively calm the engine was off. I think we all had a good off watch sleeping experience. This morning, Eric made pancakes, giant pancakes that took up your whole plate. One pancake was more than enough to fill your gut. The weather outside has been the same for 2 or 3 days: low marine layer overcast, gray, gray, gray. This is not a very exciting weather pattern but is pretty much what you would expect to find at this latitude in the northeastern Pacific. One bit of trivia, once we passed Latitude 45N, we became closer to the North Pole than we are to the equator.
Kurt just commented that there is a lot to do once we get home and suggested that maybe we should just not go home. So we have decided to turn back and do the trip again......not.
We are all looking forward to completing the trip. At this point, it looks as though we should make landfall perhaps around 8pm on Sunday evening the 6th. It should take about 12 hours from there to get to Port Townsend, which puts us at PT at 8am. In PT, it sounds like we will pick up some passengers! From there it's another 5 hours or so to our dock at Shilshole which puts us home sometime the afternoon of the Monday the 7th. If anything this prediction will get quicker not slower. If the wind holds we could be several hours earlier.
OK, so now I've done it, I've given and ETA . Have a great 4th of July, be safe and we will report again soon.