Under 500 miles to go!

Aloha Westward Fans!

At the time of writing this blog, we are sailing downwind in great conditions. We had a morning of some tough sailing, with some pretty light winds (at one point, Two Shackle got the boat speed down to 2.8 knots...a trip low!), some squalls, and some confused seas, but the weather has cleared up and we're romping along just fine now. We had some excellent news in our morning position report: it says we're up to 3rd in class and 5th overall. There's still a lot of time left, though, so we're all looking for every little bit of speed we can possibly get out of the old girl.

Just this morning, the distance to finish data window on our GPS dipped below 500, which means barring a complete loss of winds or something else that would impede our forward progress, we're just a couple of days from finishing. While it's nice to be out here enjoying the sailing, we're all looking forward to passing the Diamond Head bouy and heading in to Hawaii Yacht Club.

One of the great things about Transpac is the camaraderie (read: parties) that the Hawaiians offer once you get there. Westward also has a small shore crew headed to Honolulu. Shauneen has been in Hawaii for a couple of days (we know she's enjoying herself and last night had dinner with our friends from Picante) and today will be joined by Candy and Rosey. Mara's husband, Sadato, will also be there as will Tub's girlfriend, Whitney, and her parents. It will be good to see them all.

Not much else to report from the good ship Westward today, except that Sam has taken to eating shirtless. This is a trend that we don't *think* is going to go viral, but keep on the lookout. We're still waiting for Mara and Zack to earn their nicknames. Certainly, those will be worth the wait.

Oh, and for those waiting for the nacho results, we're happy to report they were a wild success.

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