Pacific Cup '08 - One Week and Counting - Best Day Yet!

Difficult for most of us to realize that we've been out here doing this for an entire week now. Without the typical shoreside daily routine everything seems to blend together out here into an extended series of sleeping, eating, and standing watches. One day vs. another is only important because once each day at 9am we get a report card for the previous day.
The story for us this morning was good news/bad news. The good news was that we've had our best 24 hour period vs. our division competitors sailing in our general area. Hula Girl gained only a mile, and Roxanne and XL seem to remain in striking distance.
The bad news is that the leaders in front continue to extend, and the inevitable has finally happened and the boats in our division behind us (we think they've been sailing in a bit more wind) have finally caught up to us in terms of corrected time. It will be very difficult to extend our lead enough to change that by the finish.
Things are close enough with Hula Girl that we've enjoyed the challenge of trying to minimize the miles lost via sailing on the favored gybe as much as possible while at the same time working towards the side of the course that we think will be most favored during the next two days.
Life onboard is now routine. We did try our first freeze dried meal last night and all seem to have survived. I think most were surprised by how reasonable it tasted!!
A bit less than 600 miles to go. Working hard to do what we can. Perhaps we will finally have a daylight finish??
That would be nice!!
-Jim
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