Last Day on the high seas

> From Dave:

> Well, this is it. We are 130 nm from the mouth of the Columbia and reaching under the gennaker with 16 knots of wind on the beam. Riva is performing smoothly at 8-9 knots with occasional bursts to 10.5.
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> Last night we became concerned about making our tide in the morning. The wind died off to 8 knots from the stern and we were wallowing along at 3 knots. Well, not having anything to do with that, we cranked up the iron jib (engine) and motorsailed at 7 knots. We needed to charge batteries anyway and so it served a dual purpose. At about 5 a.m. this morning, with Tom and I on watch, we set the gennaker on a pole for a downwind deep broad reach. Our speed shot up to about 7-8. We rode it that way and waited for the wind to increase and back. It did both and we were able to move the pole forward and start broad reaching. So, this brought us back onto schedule for the early tide with a bar crossing at about 5-6 am at slack ebb.
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> We just encountered an albacore fishing fleet of 6 boats out of San Diego. One of the crew on his vessel had participated in the Whitbread Around the World race in the 80's. The captain was impressed by Riva's speed as we sailed past at 8-10 knots and wished us luck.
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> The spirit of the crew is very high. Almost giddy. They know today is the last day and they are on the helm, taking turns every 30 minutes. They want Riva to perform for them one last time, to get them safely into port. Tom and I are trying to get some shut-eye because we both know that the crew will stay awake all day and into the night in order to see the first lights on shore. So, someone has to be well rested and Tom and I will be the ones.
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> We will have one more PacCup roll call tonight at 8 pm pacific time. We will bid the fleet farewell and fair sailing. We will have some more input into the blog as soon as we get back into town and are able to sort through all the pictures that we want to share with the blog followers. We have some fantastic pics and video.
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> ETA approximately 0400 at the mouth.
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> Dave