I'm back from my qualifier. Yaaay. It went from 1:15 Wednesday, off the dock in Alameda...to 8:06, Monday night.

Goods and bads....

Good:
Sailing along with Richard Rollins on "Libations, Too" and the radio chats for the first day and a half
The dolphins that came and played, twice!
The easy conditions the first day and a half...breeze out of the South@about 10, no swell
NO FOG.....no fog at all, during the entire trip. You gotta love that.
The Navik windvane that I am coming to swear by, once again. The thing is fantastic. It steers just great and never burns a single electron.

Bad:
The three ships within an hour and a half that came out of the north in the lane about 90 miles out.
The 11 hours I sat going absolutely nowhere while the system that generated the south breeze was replaced by the NW wind.
Coming in to the Gulf of the Farallones in the middle of the night, but from further south that I have before so that everything seemed to be in the wrong place.
The pinched nerve that is making my left foot/ankle kind of numb...*grr*


However, it's done....DONE. I covered about 406 miles total, and gotten more than 100 miles offshore. Hanalei, here I come!