Harvest Moon

Today marks our third consecutive day of pounding the boat into the wind towards Maui while we wait patiently for King Neptune to deliver the downwind breeze that was promised in the promotional materials.

As you may have noticed from pining over our progress on the race tracker, we have been able to slowly bank left onto a course that will put us right through the finish line. We would have rolled hotter earlier and turned more abruptly, but all the fishing gear on the back throws the boat into a four-wheel drift if we kick the wheel over too hard.

We now have well over 2,100 miles in the bag and less than 800 to go. With winds from behind, we can easily slay 200 miles in a day which puts our arrival in Maui around four days away. Fortunately, the forecast lines up with that <fingers crossed, knock on wood, rub rabbits foot> and we should have winds that will continue to make the boat sing for the remainder of this epic voyage. The aroma of cold beer and fresh burgers that is blowing our way from Hawaii has completely enveloped the cockpit and the minds of the crew. Editor's Note: We also miss our families and loved ones.

The cloud formations on the horizon that have haunted the clear nights we have been sailing through recently have been nothing short of breathtaking. However, yesterday's Harvest Moon was an experience that made the entire trip worthwhile. A few hours after the sun had set, the stars had assembled in their usual places with an unknown constellation off of the South end of the big dipper marking our standard course. The moonrise slowly blew out the stars as it rose over our left shoulder and illuminated the densely humid air around us, soaking the ocean in an almost daylight orange glow. As our eyes adjusted to the light, it was almost uncomfortable and we were a bit overwhelmed with what we were experiencing. Please add a Harvest Moon over the mid-Pacific to your bucket lists.

On the culinary front, Darin is continuing to deliver top notch meals and doing a Spartan job accommodating the gluten and wheat allergies of some of the softer crew members. To take some of the weight off of Darin, Travis baked the crew a few loaves of fresh bread which curbed the crew's growing thirst for carbs and staved off a mutiny for at least a few more hours.

After a brief hiatus, The Invitational is back on. Although nothing got reeled into the boat, Adam hooked the first Mahi Mahi of the trip and it damn-near tore his arm off before shaking itself loose. The lure of choice seems to be the Kit-Kat wrapper slash gigantic hook combo. An attempt was made to use an Oh! Henry wrapper-based lure yesterday but the aquatic life of the mid-Pacific only seem to have time for the cookie crunch of Kit-Kat.

After much deliberation, the judges have voted in a couple more white-guy shower jams for our mix tape:
The Black Eyed Peas - My Humps
Mark Morrison - Return of the Mack
Berlin - Take My Breath Away (Theme from Top Gun)

We continue to push forward taking every advantage to create as much water between us and the boats trailing us in our division as possible (as of this writing). We will need to beat several boats by close to a full day to place ahead of them (with correction factors). The upside of the way things are shaping up is that we will be hitting the dock at the same time as the bulk of the other fleet. We are very much looking forward to trading war stories with the other boats and showing our families our terrible tans! (dry-roasted to the ankle and Snow White from the knee to the neck)

On a very positive note, the crew of Anduril is flying to Maui for the post-race festivities after technical difficulties with their steering system forced them to head to San Francisco. We are very thankful to hear that the crew and boat avoided injury and we look forward to celebrating with them!

Missing you all like crazy,

The boys on Turnagain