29 degrees, 47 minutes North 116 degrees, 09 minutes West

Finally, a gorgeous day. Sun, wind, waves. We ended the rolling start at 0700 this morning just before roll call. Engine off, sails up. Had to hand steer most of the day as the wind was still on the light side, but starting around 1400, we hooked up Wilson (the Monitor Wind Vane) and it’s been a downhill slide with three foot waves and 10-15 knots true wind. Nice. We’re running with 130 jib and full main, wing on wing and doing about 6-7 knots. Elan and Danna have been awesome! Last night they had two watches; 1900 to 2300 and the dreaded 0300 to 0700 watch. Both times they bounced out of their bunks (OK, “almost” bounced) and had smiles on their faces as they came up the hatch with their hot tea in hand. Turns out Danna is a very accurate helmsman and Elan is all that plus a solid navigator, so I slept very well knowing we were in good hands. We are 130 miles from Turtle Bay, so will likely get in sometime late Wednesday/Early Thursday morning. Most likely same as last year, which was around 0200. Forecast is for stars and a nice breeze tonight. Here’s hoping. Funny thing about how on a relatively small boat you can still lose stuff. I haven’t been able to find my headlamp since Redondo Beach. I know I had it on as we came in there in the morning, but can’t for the life of me find it now. Maybe because the headband is camo elastic I just can’t see it 😉 Oh well, good thing I have a spare because that’s what we use at night. The headlamps have a red light so we don’t ruin our night vision while making coffee, getting ready for sleep, etc. When out on deck, usually there’s enough starlight for most tasks. OK, dinner’s over and Ann and I are off watch, so sleep is in order right now until 2300.

31 degrees, 54 minues North 116 degrees, 19 minutes West Lat/Lon 2300 on 10/24/11. Came up from sleeping since 1900 (just after dinner) to a beautiful starry night after a start earlier in the day that continued into cloudy skies with a little drizzle. A welcome change to the clouds/fog that we’ve been in fotr at least the last week or so. The begining of the rally this morning was fun. Many TV cameras were there for the parade of boats out of the harbor. There was a ceremonial “parade start” off Shelter Island that used the shotgun that is actually used to start the America’s Cup. They shipped it down from San Francisco just for this event.

Many of the boats we started near yelled; “nice costumes yesterday, but where’s Tinkerbell?”, so I guess I was successfully dsiguised with my wig!

The real start was at 1100 off Pt Loma. The only problem was no wind. So we do what’s called a “rolling start”. In other words, we’ve been motoring at no more than six knots, until such time that the wind comes in and the committee boat (that’s sailing with us) calls on the radio and announces that we turn off engines and sail. There’s a decent breeze forecast for tomorrow, so I’m guessing we’ll start some time after the radio check in (roll call), which is at 0730. In the mean time, the engine’s on and we’re motoring down the penninsula about 15 miles offshore.

We’ve already passed through several pods of hundreds of dolphins each, all jumping in unison as they swim along. Always a delight to see them and of course to see Ann’s face light up as she heads to the bow to watch them swim on our bow wave, passing just inches from the boat. Several whale sightings were announced on the radio net, but we haven’t seen any yet on Charisma.

Dinner was a success. I actually made it yesterday in the pressure cooker and left it on the stove with the top on. Letting it heat and then cool down with the pressure cooker locked, seals it so it doesn’t need refrigeration right away. That way we don’t have to cook the first night out and suffer possible seasickness while struggling with food prep in the first hours of getting used to the boat’s motion again. Split pea, barley, beans, potatoes and some penne pasta. Good stuff!

We’ll start fishing in the morning, so who knows, maybe Tuna or Mahi for dinner tomorrow (if not, there’s always SPAM.