You can rely on old traditions being cherished on Cirrus, and one of them is to blow a spinnaker. It happened yesterday during dinner time. The lightweight 1/2 ounce spinnaker, so carefully sewed by the Canadjian tag team, disintegrated explosively during a challenging squall. After thorough and careful evaluation by this highly qualified crew we decided to not fix the spinnaker, because we could not find enough pieces of it. Humpty Dumpty is no more.

The squalls had begun to appear yesterday, and we are already through at least half a dozen of them. A squall is a localized rain shower, some 1/2 mile to 1 mile in diameter. It has about the shape of a mushroom - the cap being the clouds, and the stem formed by the rain, pouring out of these clouds. They are moving with a speed of some 20 kn in the approximate direction of the surface wind, but at an angle to it of maybe 20 degrees. The attractiveness of the squalls to us is that they bring wind with them. Sometimes too much of it. If the squall passes over you, it pours rain on you from big buckets. However, once the squall has passed you, you may be unlucky enough to be stuck in the low wind hole behind the squall. So far we have not received a direct hit from the squalls, but mostly enjoyed good wind and some very refreshing rain. However, for Humpty Dumpty even that wind was too much. Unfortunately, we were also stuck in hole behind of them this morning, and had the sails flapping for a good hour.

Without the encumbrance of the main sail, which really may sometimes get in the way of the wind ;-) we are moving along quite well, still being in position #4 of our division. California Girl is unchallenged on first place of the division, but the fight for positions 2 to 5 isn't over yet. Looking at the boats' performances over the last days, we may well be moving down or up in ranking. Not sure what is going on on the other boats, but their performance is not convincing. Maybe they should also consider overcoming the impediment of the main sail ...

The squalls have helped us to again move at hull speed of some 8+ knots, albeit only for limited periods. Nevertheless, a 150 miles sail with only a single sail is not bad. It seems we have finally reached the trade winds; so far we expect a similar good run for today.

Another unlucky squid had propelled itself on the deck and was added to our dried squid collection. Flying fish are seen more frequent now. Only a few minutes ago we enjoyed the very unique sighting of a swarm of several hundred of flying fish all flying up simultaneously, a very, very rare sighting. We had the fishing line out yesterday for the first time. Nothing caught yet, but we keep trying!

I have begun to post the ETA, the Expected Time of Arrival below, as determined by my Cirrugator program. Of course we will make sure to come in during the night, why should we break with tradition?

'nother two ships passed at the horizon. Next vacation will be in New York; I need some calm and quiet environment to relax.

Aloha,
Ulli

position at 1400 PDT: 27N01, 144W57, COG: 230M, SOG: 7.1kn, ETA: Mon, 17Jul2006 2248 HST