July 7

July 7, 1900 hrs, postion N 32.53 / W 158.40 127 miles last 24 hrs.
Well, I guess I spoke too soon about nothing exciting going on in yesterdays post. Early last night Bob noticed a small tear in the jib about 4 ft. up from the clew. The tear was only about 3 - 4 inches and he mentioned that we needed to keep an eye on it. Shortly there after we decided the smart thing to do would be to not take the chance and roll the jib up for the night. We hoisted the staysail and later shook a reef out of the main. The boat stayed fairly well balanced and we managed to keep moving at around 5 knots. At about 6 am Bob woke me from my beauty sleep (believe me I need it) after I had been down for a couple of hours and decided it was time to make repairs. The wind had died down and it was a good time to drop the jib. We fired up the motor and turned into the wind. We got the jib on deck and Bob did his Betsy Ross impersonation and stitched her up. Took about an hour overall, not too bad. We got the jib back up, killed the engine and got back to sailing. Our distance covered over 24 hrs. dropped about 13 miles from our average but we were happy with that considering all the messing around and the less than ideal sail configuration.
This afternoon it appears that we found the north pacific high. The wind shut down and the motor started up. Bob decided that the repair job on the jib wasn't quite good enough so we wrestled her back onto the deck and he did some more stitching. He also had noticed another small tear, approx. 1 inch in size, further up the sail so he threw a patch on that one while he was at it. He is now a bit worried that this sail may be a little suspect for the rest of the trip. If this jib falls apart the only other option for the roller furling is the small Yankee sail. It will get us home but we will lose some speed.
As of right now we are still motoring with no wind in sight. May be this way for a couple of days until we get above the high. We'll be downloading some weather gribs a little later this evening to see what the predictions are for wind locations. The upside of the motoring is that it is flat and smooth out here. The weather is gorgeous and warm and the ocean is a beautiful blue. Obviously we won't be making as many miles per day this way though.
We talked to another sailboat during the Pacific Seafarers Net roll call that is about 200 miles North and about 120 miles east of us. So far they say as far as tsunami debris, they are seeing lots of junk but nothing significant. That is good to hear. We are seeing patches of crap floating around but all small stuff. I'm certain I saw a big glass float but Bob said I couldn't pick it up. Damn.
Most importantly, today was SHOWER DAY!! Much needed. You know we were bad when the fish came to the surface after we were done to say "thank you". Sheesh.