430 miles to go aboard good ship Tiki Blue

We had a challenging night last night with some really torrential squalls with enough rain to reverse the California drought. They come in pockets and when they creep up on you from astern it gets quit and then all hell breaks loose. We had to drop the spinnaker after one particular nasty one and go to white sails because of wind direction change. It slowed us down a bit but now we are in good position with 15 knots and building as we close in on the Hawaiian Islands. We can smell the coconuts, pineapple and roast pig.

We heard another boat lost full use of its rudder and has dropped out. Also a tropical storm in heading to the islands which is very unusual for this time of year. We are checking weather charts and hoping that it will not impact us however heard that torrential rain for the next three days are Island predictions. Nothing but fun on this voyage ha ha. As the boats are lining up for the slot car race to the finish line we have been in sight of Coyote for two days and expect it will be a real horse race to the barn. Tonight we are having chicken enchilada's that I'm making from scratch.... NOT.. Kelly's prepared meals make it real easy. Kelly also put a lot of salad stuff on the boat which has not been used and so we had to toss stuff as I expected. It too difficult to dice, slice and mix salad stuff when the boat is being tossed about. The Honorable J Murray did make cannibal style sandwiches with lunch meat so not a total waste. Yes and Chef Larry did make a great salad last night and we were amazed that the romaine lettuce lasted for 10 days.

Just heard on SSB net that one boat lost all power and is going dark and another boat on the course dropped out due to no wind zone and now motoring to KYC. Knock on teak... Tiki all systems working.

Cheers Capt'n Gary

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