July 25, 05:16 PST, Our first encounter, 595 miles to Honolulu, bearing 225°

“Turn on the radio quick…Channel 16…There’s a sailboat to Starboard flashing lights.” I emerge. Not my watch time quite yet, but on our boat it doesn’t matter because we’re both always on watch. A few switches flicked, “This is vessel Pegasus Whisky Delta Delta niner one seven eight hailing sailing vessel at 27:13 North by 148:58 West” That’s exciting, our first encounter for the last 6 days. It’s a fully crewed J-35 called “Urban Renewal”. We chat a bit, they’ve gotten stuck in the back of squall and a few light spots and seem happy to have found the wind. We’re going by fast. We will see them in Kaneohe Bay. Nice team.

The night has been fast. It is still night as the sun rises around 7 am PST here. I’ll give Richard a break. We sailed through a couple of 28 knot squalls and some light spots. It’s been a good night. We stuck to our plan. Favoring starboard at night.