Alaska bound

What we thought would be a quick month in Hawaii turned into two and a half months of boat work, marinas, seeing friends and a few spectacular anchorages. When we finally hauled anchor in Hanalei Bay on the north side of Kauai we felt ready to be at sea. We were rewarded with smooth seas and comfortable winds. We have been at sea 53 hours (it's Thursday afternoon now) and the routine here seems to be light winds at night, squalls and shifty wind in the morning to early afternoon and trade winds from 3P to 10P. We'll take it. Our course is due north and we have just crossed the 27th parallel North. We are well out of the tropics now but we can't tell that by the scorching temperatures during the day. Below decks the temperatures are in the high 80's, on deck it's closer to 100 in the sun. Peter has had to chase two boobies around the deck (the birds, of course) before they made a mess. We are into the watch routine and the wind has been cooperating - sail changes have been mostly only necessary when we've both been up. Speaking of sails, we have four sails (our whole inventory) on deck right now. Our storm stays'l is staged (hanked on the stay but not hoisted) for the higher winds we're sure are coming, the jib and main are up pulling and we used the spinnaker this afternoon for a few hours. We are enjoying our full radio capabilities (knock on wood) with email and voice check-in to the Seafarer's Net. With just over 2000 miles to go to Sitka we're enjoying the passage so far.