Underway position: 57 13 N 139 03 W
Course: 096T
Speed: 6.3 knots
It's blissfully calm today in the Gulf of Alaska with less than 5 knots of wind we're motoring under clear blue skies and brilliant sunshine. A small Yellow Finch has landed on LightSpeed, the poor little fellow must be off course as we're 130 miles from land. Our cat Shell is ecstatic and trilling with pleasure as she tracks the tiny bird around the sun warmed decks. We're trailing a line in hopes of an Albacore tuna and otherwise using the flat calm conditions to work on a few boat projects.
The sunshine is invigorating and Kathy is enjoying nearly 70 degree temperatures to as she does a yoga workout on deck.
Dave is splicing ends on a new anchor bridal after snapping the last one in the intense 50-60 knot williwas of we encountered on the Aleutian island of Atka. Although, it may be fleeting, we feel like we've finally caught up with the last vestiges of summer weather.
Looking at our log book, we last called in Sitka on July 29, 2011. In the interim we've sailed 24,760 nautical miles, ranging 96 degrees of longitude and 78 degrees of latitude making a curly cue loop de loop of sorts that took us to twice to French Polynesia, three times to the Cook Islands and once to Samoa, Western Samoa, Wallis, Fiji, Kirbati and the Marshall Islands on our way back to Alaska.
LightSpeed has proven a superb vessel carrying us safely over 35,000 miles of infrequently traveled expanses of ocean since we purchased her in mid-2009.
That's it for now.
