Day 19Land Ho!

What an exciting morning. We finally have seen landfall. Kevin thinks he saw the mountains for about 10 minutes this morning from about 55 miles out. He is the only one who saw them and it has been foggy and cloudy on the horizon but we know we are close and only getting closer. 

As of yesterday at about noon it started to look as if we might make it to Sitka on Sunday June 26 instead of the earlier anticipated 27th. I decided to maintain an average speed over 6 kts which meant we would have run the engine and motor sail even if we were sailing at 5 kts.

Although motor sailing when there is a moderate breeze out is a pain it paid off as we’ll arrive it Sitka this afternoon!

When I got on shift at 6 am, Kevin had been sailing for 2 hours with the motor on and the wind kept building. I decided to shake out the reefed headsail and try to claw back some miles. I was able to hand steer my two hours and rack up 15.2 miles. 

Jed came on after me and clocked 16 miles, which Ron then followed up with another 16 mile run, giving us 171 miles for the 24 hour run. What a great time to have a huge day as we are now only 20 miles from Sitka at noon on the 26th.

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