//WL2K - Carina Underway

Dear Friends;

We are now in day 5 of our journey to Alaska. Ever since we sank the land after leaving Pohhpei, we have seen no other ship traffic, no bird life except for a boobie or two and three tropic birds. All around Carina, 360 degrees, is an expanse of cobalt blue seas, foamy white caps, blue sky, and puffy white clouds. Now that the waning moon lifts her head so late in the evening, the night sky is inky black with an explosion of stars and planets. Carina's radar screen, reaching out its maximum 24 nautical miles, is totally blank. If not for the occasional rain cell which shows up as an indistinct smudge, one would wonder if the unit was working at all. Our AIS, which was so indispensable on our last journey from Palau to Papua New Guinea, warning us repeatedly of near collisions with large tankers and container ships, also shows only a blank screen. It is times like these when you sit in the cockpit, staring up at the night sky and wonder if the rest of the world has gone away; are we the only two people left on the planet?

But, no, we are not alone; our connection to the world does exist as our computer, radio and modem allow us to send and receive messages although our send and receive rate is VERY slow. We also check in daily with the Pac Sea Net, a group of ham radio operators who monitor our progress (14,300 USB at 0300 UTC). No TV or internet of course; in these tumultuous times, we wonder just what is happening in the news. In port in the morning, we were news junkies glued to the internet reading all the fake news: CNN, Washington Post, New York Times, etc. But maybe this is a good thing; our world has collapsed into just necessary functions like keeping Carina sailing efficiently, cooking and eating meals, reading, writing, 3-hour watches and catnap-sleeping when we can.

We are reasonably pleased with our progress in spite of beating to weather in short choppy, 2-meter waves. Perhaps we have passed the first 10% of our trip with only a few bruises to show for it. Only time will tell. We will try to keep updates coming as we are able.

Your friends of the yacht Carina,
Philip, Leslie and the spirit of the fat cat, Jake
website: www.sv-carina.org



At 5/20/2017 and 19:31 UTC (GMT) our position was: 14°02.27'N / 158°08.70'E

p.s. PLEASE, if you wish to respond to our emails, DO NOT hit the "reply" button as it sends our original message back to us.
We usually have limited bandwidth that makes it difficult to receive lengthy messages.

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