Position: 45 degrees, 29 minutes north; 151 degrees, 31 minutes west 127 nm day (motoring since 0230)

This is literally the corner of the Pacific High. The wind shifted, baro dropped and it got colder, all within a couple hours. You can see the clear definition of the clouds as well.

So...we had to commemorate it with a selfie!

Ah, the elusive, fabled Pacific High. What is it? A wind pattern that forms off the North American Continent that blocks a streamline passage from the tropics to the mainland. Like the gold of El Dorado you hear stories of it, but have you seen it? I learned the “speak” and was able to tell people about our route from Hawaii up over the Pacific High. It was just parroting on my part because I could not define it. It was the elephant in the middle of the North Pacific blocking our way. It created “analysis paralysis” as the crews of Orcinius and Charisma watched the gribs and windty.com to see where it was and how we would attack it. At that time, before our departure it was not forming into the round void of no air that we sailors had heard of. It was broken into several smaller sections that would each be an issue during passage…and so we waited.

This moving target that the Pacific High creates makes it hard to determine how long our passage will be. This last leg to North America…it should be easier to define but it is not. The plan is to sail due north from Hawaii (hear my “speak”) until you find the north west edge of the high and let it sling shot you around to the west and the North American continent. Guess what? I think we found that corner at about 2:30 am. The winds finally died and it was time to turn on the engine to go through “the corner” and get on the north side where the westerly winds are.

So what is the Pacific High. I can tell you a few things it means. Since there is no wind in the center, it is motoring, not sailing which means less heeling over and I can now walk to the bathroom without hanging on for dear life. It is ships! Lots of them. 7 in the first 24 hours. We are crossing shipping lanes from Asia and Japan. It is cloud cover. 100%. Except for the very edge where the sunset sneaks in at the last moment with a spectacular green flash. This afternoon the clouds lifted for a few hours and it was a cauldron of clouds surrounding beautiful blue water (perhaps the swirling winds on the outside of the High created this). It is jellyfish exploding in light bubbles as we go through the night water. It is three small black birds twittering at me into the wee hours of the morning. It is whales …but Bob can share that story!

Most importantly the Pacific High, where we are…is the turn to the continent! No longer are we headed to Alaska. We are better than half way done! Turning points are important and easy to identify. From New Zealand it was when the winds separated us from the southern lows and headed us north to French Polynesia. As we passaged to Hawaii from Tahiti it was the ITCZ…an area of the Pacific we knew but had scary memories of.

Yes, we have found the fabled Pacific High and we are heading over the top! The weather is cooler, the continent is ahead of us!

Position: 44 degrees, 07 minutes north; 154 degrees, 02 minutes west 120 nm day

That Ann. Kaila Vosa strikes again. Of course we’re talking about her speaking with the cargo vessel Eternal Grace. They were the second out of three ships sighted today on their way from Asia to the West Coast.

Even though we're thousands of miles from anywhere, you have to watch for the shipping lanes. In this case, looks like Asia to either SF or LA.

She decided it would be fun to call them out of the blue (literally) and chat. It turned out that “chatting” was not in the Indian bridge officer’s job description and the conversation was very short. More remarkable was the officer’s response when she identified where we were. It seems he had not yet noticed us. We were about 10 miles away, Yikes.

The real excitement was at 0600 during my watch when I spotted a large container ship on the horizon (which is about 12 or so miles right now). I checked the AIS to see its course and whether we would have an issue and found that we were on a collision course. On the open ocean a sailboat has right of way over a motor vessel since we are less maneuverable. Anyway, I called the ship at about 8 miles and got no answer. At this time its speed over ground info disappeared which also meant I no longer had the intercept info. I called again at 6 miles – no answer. Usually we call the ship and between us negotiate how we’re going to cross. And usually the ship is very happy to change course to avoid us. Not this guy. The other data on the AIS showed he was not changing course or speed and indeed my visual showed the same. Well, I may have right of way, but this vessel was 1200 feet long and had a 39 foot draft! It’s draft was deeper than Charisma is long! I’m not taking any chances there since “collision” has two meanings for each of us. For him it means “something went bump”. For us it would mean obliteration. So, I furled the jib and turned 20 degrees toward him. That worked and he went zooming by and I missed him by 1.3 miles. That could be about 7 of his boat lengths. Never heard a word, so I assume one of two things: either they were asleep on the bridge or being bullies by not answering the radio. The name of the vessel is MSC Ines. I have screen shots of the AIS also showing my track where I had to alter course to go behind him. I also kept the lat/lon. When we get back, I’m going to send these to the shipping company and ask them if the bridge even logged the encounter and whether it’s their policy to run down sailboats in the open ocean.

MSC Innes. You can see how I had to alter our course to avoid getting run over.

Other than that, it’s been a pretty nice day. The wind has moderated down to about 12 knots and the seas are almost flat. I think we’re on the west side of the high and soon to start rounding the top. I’m hoping we can start to head east in another 10 hours or so. It’s also nice to be able to sit and stand without hanging on to something for dear life.

OK, the even bigger news today is we turned all the cabin fans off for the first time in eight weeks! Yes, you heard right. Since a week or so before we got to Tahiti it started getting “tropical hot” and we turned on the fans. They have been on 24/7 since then, until today. Of course the flipside to that is we’re using blankets again and wearing layers, but it’s a nice change from the topical heat.

Position: 42 degrees, 21 minutes north; 154 degrees, 55 minutes west 127 nm day

Waves, rolling down from somewhere beyond. Once set in motion, now unstoppable. One, then another, then the next times thousands rolling under us, hour after hour, day after day. In the distance something breaks this symmetry.

The albatross.

At once recognizable for its soaring grace. Great, narrow wings sculptured by nature seeking perfection through the generations. Toward us it sails. Great sweeping tracks as it soars down into the valleys between waves, gaining energy from wind and water. Then with a tilt of its head it flows to the top of a crest and with an imperceptible command instantly tips astonishingly on its side – wings now vertical – one delicately poised at the wave top, feathers caressing the rippled water, the other reaching to the sky. A pirouette! A bridge between sea and sky! Then as seamlessly as before, perhaps laughing with the joy of such pure flight, the albatross effortlessly levels its huge wings and soars off down the next wave and is gone as suddenly as it appeared.

The ocean rolls on.

And, in other news today…we saw a spectacular “green flash” at sunset. Possibly the best and most distinct one either of us has ever seen. The sun had fully set when back up came the flash of bright green. Most spectacular.

Position: 40 degrees, 22 minutes north; 155 degrees, 57 minutes west 130 nm day

Nothing’s changed. We’re still double reefed main with the stays’l, doing 5.5 to 6 knots going almost due north. Squalls come and go. Sometimes it’s nice, blue sky or at night, stars and sometimes it’s raining, but Charisma is in Day 10 of heading the same direction, on the same tack, heeling over at the same 35-45 degrees and bounding over 4-6 foot waves. Any movement about the boat is treacherous. It you don’t time your move just right you get slammed against ribs, butt, etc. I have not touched the sails or the wind vane for at least three days. Looking forward to some change which looks like we might see in another day or so. As we approach the high, the wind will go behind us somewhat, which will also be our signal to start angling NE to climb over the top of the high – at which point we can start heading due east for Victoria.

It's a great day when Ann makes her wonderful stove top pizza.

It’s been too rough for fishing today, so we didn’t, but Orcinius, who are 295 nm ahead said they caught a couple skipjack tuna. We don’t much like cooked skipjack, but they make incredibly good sashimi, so that’s some incentive to get the line back out.

We’ve started our list of “Broken Boat Stuff”. Hope it doesn’t get too long. Going on one tack with no changes for so long takes its toll in chafe and assymetric wear. For now, we’ve got; Wind vane paddle spring broke. Paddle won’t stay down so I had to jury-rig something until I can take it off, Shortwave radio mic cable has a break. Taped it carefully, hope it lasts the rest of the trip. Stays’l hank “line” (don’t know what to call it) frayed and broke. It’s been jury-rigged, but we’ll need a new one when we’re done. Hopefully it will hold until then. My fix on the hydro-generator when we were in Honolulu is working, so unlike the trip up from Tahiti where we had to run the engine every day to help the solar panels (too many clouds in the trade winds), we haven’t had the engine on except for three hours a week ago to outrun a squall. Nice and peaceful.

And how are WE you might ask. Actually a bit bored. It gets monotonous going the same direction for these 10 days, essentially pounding our way upwind to get above the high. We’re reading a lot of books to beat the boredom. Can’t wait to get up to where we turn the corner.

Position: 38 degrees, 18 minutes north; 156 degrees, 42 minutes west 135 nm day

Not much to report today, just a nice day. Wind was 20-22 on the beam, so we’re still just heading north. As the wind shifts more south – probably in a couple days – that will be our sign that we’re entering the influence of the Pacific High and we’ll start to ease our way to the northeast. But in the mean-time, we’re just enjoying a nice sail.

Red sky at night..,

...sailor's delight.

By the way, we waved at San Francisco a while ago. We’re passing through SF’s latitude although you may not have seen us since we’re about 1600 miles out.

Position: 36 degrees, 11 minutes north; 157 degrees, 40 minutes west 140 nm day – (we’re about the latitude of Santa Barbara)

Yipee! What a night we had last night. No furling, no squalls and most importantly… no lightning! Just stars and a few high clouds.

As the sun set on a beautiful, clear afternoon of 360 degrees of blue we noticed that the horizon was becoming congested with clouds.

Beautiful, but also scary. These are the ones that turn into lightning storms at night.

South of the equator and on our passage north to Tahiti this was just a sunset phenomenon. The clouds would arrive at sunset and dissipate by early evening leaving clear night skies. Not on this leg. Clouds on the sunset horizon have been there to stay and taunt us all night.

So last night after our sunset dinner Bob and I went down below. Bob to write the blog, me to do the dishes and prepare for my night watch. I stopped and glanced up at the “first star I see tonight” and made a wish…please no lightning tonight. I said a quick prayer to the Maker of the glorious stars and went below.

A half hour later when I came up to settle in for my watch I looked up and gasped! Bob, come look! 360 degrees of stars, stars, and more stars! My Big Dipper gleefully waved to me from the northern skies. It was a glorious night! The only clouds that drifted over were fluffy things, not scary carriers of lightning. The evenings are beginning to cool enough to need an additional layer of clothing. I grabbed a blanket around 11 pm and snuggled down on my back for perfect viewing of the last few meteors and many, many stars. Oh what a night!

Even Charisma seemed to dance with joy on the waves. We were skipping along between 6 and 7 knots all night. It got a little boisterous at times but we kept the jib out and made great mileage dancing under the starlit sky…no moon, just stars. The new moon comes out tonight.

I had followed the blogs of several boats that did this passage a few weeks before us. They spoke of squally weather but no one mentioned the lightning. Orcinius is about 200 miles ahead of us and a bit further east and they have hardly seen lightning. It is fascinating to watch. When it is up high above the clouds it really does look like a pinball game. When it drops lower it looks like water balloons setting off other explosions. It is a humbling experience to be gliding under all of this electric activity. Lots of prayers and good Charisma mana and of course, Angels on our sails are protecting the good ship, Charisma.

Today has been a beautiful day of sailing too. Minus a 15 mile wide squall that suddenly bore down on us around 11 am. The fun was over. Bob helped me furl the jib to slow down, let it go in front of us, and went back to bed. An hour later our evasive maneuver proved successful! The squall had slid by in front of us. Yay!

And just now at 5 pm, Bob called to have me come see a full rainbow arching over the ocean. I hope it is a good sign!

Lotta squalls means a lotta rainbows.

Position: 33 degrees, 57 minutes north; 158 degrees, 25 minutes west 125 nm day

We’d be doing more like 140 mile days if it weren’t for these darn squally, lightning filled nights. Unfortunately they are forcing us to reduce sail and go more slowly in between the blasts.

Oh well. Last night the lightning didn’t even wait until dark. A big monster came up right behind us at sunset and started belching fire. Yipes! Fortunately it didn’t catch us, but it was a close one. The lightning went on all night from almost everywhere. Fortunately the ones that popped up in front of us from time to time missed us although we were watching the radar pretty frequently to see if we would need to take evasive action.

While somewhat fun to watch when it’s not breathing down your neck – it makes for a very dramatic landscape at night when the bolts flash – it made meteor shower gazing non-existent. Our eyes were never able to adjust to the dark and the squalls throw off a lot of clouds as well.

Come our watch change at 0800 we were chased by a huge, dark, evil, ominous beast. Took about half an hour before we were sure we were outrunning it. I’m getting ready for a vacation!

The afternoon turned nice though and we had 6 hours of glorious sailing and a nice sunset. But (there’s always a “but”) the squallies are back now that the sun’s going down. There’s a lot of vertical development in the clouds which is the precursor to the lightning.

Cross fingers. We’re both getting tired of this.

Position: 31 degrees, 58 minutes north; 159 degrees, 18 minutes west 132 nm day

It’s starting earlier tonight. It’s not even dark yet and already the lightning is starting just upwind and behind us. Hopefully it’s not chasing us down, but I’m not sure yet which way it’s going. I’m plotting it on the radar as I type this.

Uh, oh...

Last night, the lightning was a fun lightshow. There was a huge CB behind us and it was very active. It lit up every 10 seconds or less for my whole watch. There were even three bolts that touched the water right behind us. At the same time, it was clear above us and meteors would shoot across the sky, dropping down below the CB behind us as if they were dropping into it, and it would then fire a bolt and the whole sky would light up. Fun to watch!

Until morning. Around 0800 two HUUUGGEE CBs came down from upwind with our name on them. Each was at least 10 miles wide and had that greasy dark grey/black look under them that distinguishes the really ugly ones from run of the mill squalls. Down toward us they came, snarling and growling, then lightning and thunder! I adjusted our course as best I could to run from it, but it seemed no use. The first one was going to devour us. Suddenly it seemed to veer or part of it lifted and missed us by a hair’s breath. I couldn’t believe it. It though we were going to get hammered.

But, the celebration was very short lived. The next one seemed a little smaller, but was growing rapidly and it started throwing lightning bolts all the way to the water, right where we were headed! The other problem was – we were almost dead in the water. The first squall had sucked all the energy out of the area where before the squall we were enjoying 15 plus knots of breeze. OK, no more fooling around – engine on and before even warming it up I pushed the throttle full forward in squall avoidance mode. More lightning! I steered 90 degrees to where I thought the direction of the lightning’s travel was, hoping to slide past it. You can’t just turn away and outrun these things, they go too fast, you can only try and get an angle that hopefully gets around one.

Well, I got around the lightning, but the rain enveloped us and we were steering by instruments for half an hour trying to find the best course to get through the beast the fastest. We finally made it out the other side, but these two squall/CBs were so big they sucked all the wind out of the area and we ended up motoring for two hours before the wind filled back in.

Here’s hoping tonight is less eventful. It’s supposed to be the peak of the meteor shower and we would much rather watch that than lightning.

Position: 29 degrees, 47 minutes north; 159 degrees, 45 minutes west 118 nm day

That’s what Ann says the huge lightning storm behind us was. I’m not going to argue as long as it’s BEHIND us. The flashes of lightning were high up in the clouds and they seemed to ricocheted from all around us.

Quite a night of pyrotechnics. The lightning storm (or Angels, etc) continued all night and culminated toward dawn with giant flashes every 5 seconds or less. Glad we weren’t there.

We also had the first night of the Persius meteor shower. It was pretty good. I saw so many I lost count, although most were not very big. OK, I know, picky, picky…

Lastly we had the wanning moon – a mere sliver by now – bashfully peeking from behind a cloud just before sun up.

Daytime-wise, it was a pretty nice day. The wind and sea finally calmed so we had a nice ride. The wind still doesn’t know where it wants to settle. I think I changed the reefs about five times today. The sun is still intense – I had to retire to the cabin for a while just to get some relief – but the temperature is not as hot and with the smoother water we can open the hatches.

During one of Ann’s watches, I got up to use the head and when I came back she was standing in the cabin smiling from ear to ear. “What!” says I sleepily. “I caught and released a small Mahi Mahi!” Someone is getting to be quite the fisherman. Turned out the Mahi was on the small side and we’d rather have a tuna. Later in the morning she hooked a tuna, but it got away. We had three other hits in the afternoon including hooking another small Mahi that I shook off. OK, cross fingers for tuna tomorrow please!

Position: 27 degrees, 54 minutes north; 159 degrees, 45 minutes west 115 nm day

Still going slower than we’d like. Squally weather has kept us from optimal sail combinations. Like right now. There’s a huge squall just upwind and we have to furl the jib to keep it from tearing itself up as the squall gets to us with 30 knot winds. But in the meantime we’re sailing almost 30% slower than with the jib up – and we’ll stay that way for a while after the squall passes. The good news from Orcinius, who is upwind and ahead of us, is that there’s lighter wind, no squalls and more moderate seas ahead. Yay! Hopefully tomorrow we’ll be able to really get going.

The good news for today is the showers. Yes, after three-plus hot and humid days including getting drenched with salt water on the first day when I went forward to set the stays’l, we got to take showers today. Bliss. Feels so good to wash all the sticky salt, sweat and sunscreen off. And the bonus is that, while it’s still quite warm, it’s not as blazing hot, nor nearly as humid as it’s been in Hawaii. Going north has its advantages! The other good news is Ann cooked dinner! I think she noticed that after getting thrown around the galley trying to cook in the bouncy conditions I’ve become near suicidal about the cooking and she thankfully took over tonight’s chore. A really nice salad and a spiced chicken patty thingy. It was quite good. We agreed it tasted like a nice chicken sausage. Thank you Ann!

Now if the wind and seas would calm a bit, we could open the portholes and hatches and get some ventilation going in the cabin.