Excerpt from the the Log of the Kraken
by Mark Malacek, July 13th, 2016
We are reporting from 42.5 N and 130 W. We have now traveled over 400 nautical miles and have a mere 1920 or so to go. The sky is thinly overcast but bright; sunny clouds. Our solar panels are kicking out 4 amps regardless.
We have continued to make good progress, albeit a little slower than the previous days. We are making our way across the high and will be doing so for the next 24 hrs or so – we think. The winds here are light but we are moving along 5 kts or so with occasional burst of acceleration, under thundery looking cloud formations. The good news is we are finally going down-hill (that`s down wind for you land-lubbers) and have a spinnaker up (that's the big puffy colourful sail).
Our communications systems are working well, especially the Iridium Go; we have had no issues whatsoever downloading weather data and receiving e-mails. The trick is to keep the file sizes down below 50kb or so and nothing hangs up. Our weather models are telling us that by Thursday we will be in some good pressure and the drag race will be on.
The Kraken Krew remain in good spirits and are starting to get their sea-legs. No more queasiness and the motion of the boat is becoming familiar.
Rations are growing thin though and the crew is down to salt pork and pickled potato skins to fight off the scurvy ... WAA??.. Not!! – try wild Pacific sesame crusted seared albacore with organic soy sauce! We call our Oceanside restaurant the Taste of the Kraken and have brought in our new Ocean-wise (fresh) menu. Yesterday Annette and Alex decided to try out the fishing line and 3 minutes later (I swear) BAM – tuna on! The fight was short and death to fishy was swift. We do, however, have to figure out how to dispatch these things over the side or off the back of the boat. Our cockpit, and ALEX, looked like some sort of Silence of the Lamb meets the Godfather massacre once it was all over!
For 50 years Mustang Survival has been engineering high-performance marine gear for military, coast guard, and rescue personnel.
We have received a lot of great notes of encouragement from our friends and family and we all really appreciate it and thank everyone.
Kraken Krew out.