Sailors' Delight

You know a passage is coming up when I start posting pictures of the weather forecast.

We just got a call from a friend in Kodiak, asking when we might be setting out from Hawai'i on this final leg of our trip, and would we be interested in a party when we arrive. (Thanks, Debra!)

In a way that's the first tangible (is a call tangible?) sign of our fairly imminent arrival.

I'm sure that I'll get excited when the time comes. But right now Kodiak still seems too far away to get worked up over.

What I am excited about - in a very visceral way - is the forecast that I looked at this morning (above). The classic summer North Pacific pattern seems to be setting up, at least for a day. That circle in the isobars at the middle of the basin is the North Pacific High, and the circle around western Alaska is the Aleutian Low. And it's pretty easy to imagine how the winds those two pressure centers are spinning up might waft a boat every so delightfully from Kona to Kodiak.

After what has been, by any reasonable measure, a lot of passagemaking over the last decade, I find that I get this nearly sensual anticipation over the possibility of a good one.

We'll see what transpires.

Alisa had the sewing machine out to work on the sails and whipped out this holder for Elias' trolling lures at the end of the day. The lures were given to Elias by a very kind local fisherman in the sport charter trade. (Thanks, Sean!)