Day Four

June 30th,2006
Last night I had the 10pm to 1 am shift, we had rough seas again with 30 kt winds. For most of the trip we have been using our stay sail and our Genoa at the second reef. Our average speed has been around 7kts. We have had a rough ride for the last 4 days. Sleeping has been tough.

When you have a night watch you get a lot of time to think about life and the possibilities of something going wrong. You run different scenarios in your head to try to figure out what would be the best solution. All three of us have talked a lot about all of these things. This time has really opened up my eyes about everyday life back at home. We take a lot for granted. We had some excitement last night around 3 am, Sam was on watch and he spotted a boat off in the distance. Mike and I got up and we seen the glow of light off the starboard side of the boat. We turned on the radar and we confirmed that it was another boat, we tried to make radio contact... No luck. We figured that they did not speak English. The boat got close enough that we could see their green running light and they shined a very bright spotlight on to us. We haven't seen anything for the past 3 days and nights. To see another boat in the middle of the Pacific gave us a warm feeling that somebody was out here with us. To some this might seem such a trivial thing but for the three of us it was a real spirit lifter. The route that we are on has no shipping lanes and to see this boat within 2 miles was very exciting for us.

Today was a great day for all of us, we were able to finally eat a regular meal. I surprised the boys with a Costco Lasagna and Chinese salad. When I pulled the lasagna dish out of the oven we all couldn't believe we were going to be having a hot meal for the first time in days. We have finally gotten over our sea sickness and this hot meal brought much joy. You would of thought that for the last 4 days not eating very much that we would be starved. After only a few bites we were all so full, I guess our stomach have shrunk. Great Diet!!

Our position is: N 11 53.893, W 157 41.260. Still working on the tracking web site.