Another day, another mahi. 🙂 The mahi bite is starting to slow, but the area from Hawaii to 600 miles north thereof seems plentiful with them. Now if we were to ask if the mahi could be just a little bigger, would that make us look disgracefully unappreciative?
Thankfully and surprisingly we were able to shut off the motor this morning at around 8 am and begin to sail. And gradually the wind further filled until it was blowing in the twenties, which meant the wave height got significantly bigger too (6-8 feet). Sara has adjusted to the motion but the bigger waves just make her tired. Yesterday she was making banana bread and tuna fish for the fridge so as to have snacks for today, but the waves today made her feel a bit blah. And as you can see below the temperature is getting cooler, both the air and water being about 73 degrees. And a light drizzle of rain began as well, sort of like an autumn day.
Over the last 24 hours we are 130 miles closer to our destination of Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Perhaps tomorrow we will reach the halfway point?
Cheers,
Wade and Sara
Math Be Hard For Sailors – Alaska
Destination: Dutch Harbor, Alaska or where we drop anchor (53°53.677’N, 166°31.029’W)
Prize: Alaskan post card from us to you and a 12X16 Penrhyn Black-tip Shark poster Submissions are accepted until 7/20/17.
Please only submit the date and time only, no need for your crazy calculations via ComfortCruising.com Math Be Hard For Sailors Contact Form. Weather: Cloudy
Ves. Pos. 35°32.582’N, 163°39.979’W
SOG: 7.0 kts
Course Over Ground (COG): 000°
Time: 12:09:00 PM 7/22/17
Nautical miles to destination as a bird flies(Crs Rng & Brg): 1108 nm & 355° Apparent wind speed (AWS): 15.1 kts
Apparent wind angle: Port 127°
Outside Temperature: 73°
Water Temperature: 73°
Barometer: 1019
Engine RPM: N/A (stoped at 8:00 AM)
Risk the Weather Guy gave us our fourth waypoint to sail towards 40 00N 165 00W
Math Be Hard For Sailors Tip:
We do not pull into unknown anchorages during the dark. So an arrival time during daylight hours is much more likely. Yet the nights are pretty short during Alaska summers. There are so many unknowns when arriving to a new anchorage our motto is to heave-to or sail back and forth to fish outside a passage, harbor, or anchorage if we arrive before good light.
Upon arrival we will have to choose between two passes, Akutan or Unalga, that connect the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea ao as to reach nearby Dutch Harbor. Traveling in and out of a pass like Akutan or Unalga is similar to how we enter and exit an atoll. We try our best to time our arrival based on the tides and currents. The nice part is we are in the United States and NOAA provides a lot of information (http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov). Be sure to consider that we will be going through one of these two passes during slack current/tide for guessing our destination time. Good luck.
