Embracing slow

The skies improved yesterday morning while we slowly motored north under rainy skies. Then the wind backed and a light breeze filled in, enabling us to begin sailing (so much quieter). We had smooth, though slow sailing through the afternoon and evening until about midnight at which time the breeze had really dropped and we began motoring slowly again. A few weak squalls have appeared on the radar and while I've been able to begin sailing again, the wind is shifting south and I think those squalls are again at work, though they look much smaller that the last two nights and the small increase in wind speed to 11kts is a good tradeoff for the shift in direction to the south.

In any case the 36hrs of lousy weather and squalls pushed us south and slowed us down. So now we have an "embracing slow" strategy. The distance to travel is too far to arrive at a reasonable time on Thursday night, and too little to arrive on Friday morning. Since we do not want to arrive in the middle of the night, we will sail slow (not a problem with such light wind), and then motor slow when/if the wind backs as the forecasts suggest. Then the forecast has a proper San Francisco greeting with 15-20kts the last day or so when we'll pretty much have no choice but to be sailing fairly fast. We'll check the forecast again in the morning to see if this scenario is still valid. The advantage at this point is that motoring slowly for 150 miles or so will stretch out our fuel (better mileage) which will help us in case the forecast shifts and there are even more light winds.

Last night and yesterday we had two interesting encounters with ships.

The first was a ship that was overtaking us from directly astern, right on our same course. It was a 900' Panamax (largest ship that can go through the canal) container ship. They didn't respond to my first call, but did respond to my second call. The voice sounded like a slightly bored Russian and after a brief discussion he assured me that he could see us and would alter course to starboard to avoid us. Later, when he drew to within six miles and had not altered course, I called again. Again he assured me he would alter course, not to worry. To our surprise, a few minutes later he called us back, asked us to switch to another channel and said he wanted to ask some questions. He turned out to be quite interested in what such a "little" boat was doing out here, how many were on board, where we were going, etc, etc. And he was indeed Russian. We ended up having an extended chat about his boat, his trip, our boat, our trip, his experiences on a Russian training ship (so he was probably an officer), his trips to Oakland and taking the "metro" to San Francisco, etc. etc. He did change course to starboard, and then turned on a whole bunch of his lights as he went by, quite a show!

The second ship was during the day and on our exact opposite course, a 1,000'+ container ship coming straight at us at 20kts. Paul was on watch and contacted the ship which responded that they could not see us on radar or visually. Paul followed regarding what they would do, and they failed to respond. He tried again and no response. It was at the watch change so when I came up we decided to take evasive action, dropped the sails, started the engine and turned away from the ship. It ended up crossing us about a mile and a half to our port side; at which time they came on the radio and told us they could see us! Didn't that warm our hearts. It was clear the guy was interested in strictly a CYA communication as he gave some information that he obviously put into his log. Paul was quite miffed and took notes so that he could complain to the company (MSC) and the international authorities, when we arrive. Had Paul not been paying close attention and taken evasive action the encounter would have been much closer.

This final 900 miles has turned out to be a real challenge with each 100 miles of progress requiring a different approach. Not just a matter of setting the sails and following the course to our destination. So we're grinding it out and adapting to each change in the weather. 525 miles to go.

ETA: Friday morning