Steve
03/31/2010, King Harbor, Redondo Beach, Los Angeles

Just a quick note to let everyone know we are planning for a Friday departure.

The plan is to leave in the late morning and if the wind direction is favorable, to sail past the West end of Catalina Island. From there we should be able to head more down wind past San Clemente Island and that will be the last bit of land we see for "some time". With favorable winds we should be past Clemente by dark and then enjoy the open ocean breeze which tends to blow more consistently than the wind close to land. That means we can continue making good time under sail at night as well as during daylight.

We expect to sail for a week or so on the same tack heading south. As we reach lower latitudes the wind should come more and more from the east. We don't want to head too far west until we pass the equator because the wind on the other side is coming up from the south east, and if we are too far west we will have to sail into the wind instead of with the wind. So we will go no more than three to six hundred miles west before reaching the equator which is around twenty five hundred miles south.

Today Kurt and I serviced one of the hydraulic rams that steers Endless Summer. We test out our work tomorrow and if it fixed our rudder alignment problem then we are a go for Friday. If not, then we are a go for driving to Orange county with our steering system and seeing if someone can fix it. This if why boating is so good for the economy.

Sorry no pics yet, but they are coming soon.

We'll let you know if we get away on Friday.

PS. There is an old sailing legend that says never begin a voyage on a Friday. But this Friday is Good Friday, so we figured we could get away with it.

South Pacific Crossing

Comments [8] | | More

Steve
03/29/2010, King Harbor Marina, Redondo Beach, California

Wow! Thank you for all the warm wishes and comments. We were suprised to see so many people following our progress. Now we really do need to update our blog more often.

We arrived in Santa Barbara on Saturday evening. Our rounding of Point Conception was anti climactic. The wind continued to die until around 3:00 AM when we turned on the motors. (I think technically that makes it anticlimatic as well as anticlimactic.) We had a great motor boat ride all the way to Santa Barbara and got a few projects done like installing our new teak cockpit table.

We had dinner with friends in SB. Mark, Asha, and Stuart. And coffee on Endless Summer Sunday morning with Mark, Asha, their kids Lucien and Oliver, and Liz, and Jon Brady. The air temperature was in the high 70s as we relaxed in the beautiful Santa Barbara harbor.

Manjula and I left at 1:30pm and by 2:00 were sailing south again with our new gold colored spinnaker flying in the perfect warm breeze. The sun set over the Channel Islands on one side of the boat, as the full moon rose over the coastal hills of Oxnard on the other. We saw a few whales and had dinner and then the wind died. We spent the rest of the night hoisting sails and dropping them again as the wind came and went. Eventually we arrived under power at King Harbor around 2:30 AM.

At this point the weather looks favorable for a Friday departure for the Marquesas. We will spend the next four days visiting friends and family, provisioning the boat with as many fresh veggies as we can carry, and of course fixing all of the things that broke in the last five minutes. Boats are in a constant state of falling apart. I think if you left a boat for more than a short while you would return to find a broken mast sticking out of the water where your boat used to be. The boat itself would have decomposed into a pile of rubble on the sea floor.

We'll post some pictures soon. And thanks again for all your nice comments.

Steve

South Pacific Crossing

Comments [1] | | More

Steve
03/27/2010, About 40 miles north of Point Conception

It is 1:00 AM on Saturday morning. Manjula and Toby are sleeping. The moon is lighting up the ocean and it feels like real wilderness out here. Thursday evening we departed San Francisco. As soon as we got outside the Golden Gate and into the shipping channel it began to rain and get windy. We sailed all night and by 2:00 AM were seeing winds in the 20s. The wind and swell continued to build through the night and Friday. Friday afternoon we put in our second reef when we saw gusts to 30 knts. This was fine sailing. We were surfing 8 to 10 foot swells with boat speeds up to 14 knots with only a double reefed main and a small jib.

It felt so good to get out of the boat yard and to be actually sailing. We had sunny weather all day on Friday and a big moon to sail by tonight. With the windy conditions we considered pulling into Morro Bay instead of continuing on around the notoriously rough Point Conception. We decided to make that call once we were in the area depending on the wind. As we approached about 30 miles off of Morro Bay the winds moderated and we heard a weather radio report of decreasing winds over the night, so we decided to continue on to Santa Barbara another 90 miles south.

Indeed the winds did moderate, but the lumpy swells remained making it quite uncomfortable for the off watch who were trying to sleep. I started tinkering with the sails and finally found a nice balance between the reefed mainsail on one side of the boat and the jib sail on the other. This is called sailing "wing on wing". It is very pleasant and has us comfortably surfing along directly on course for Point Conception.

Unlike last night and Friday, there is almost no traffic of any kind out here. Earlier in the day we had a little scramble to get out of a 600 foot cargo carrier. We had to cross in front of him and were sailing at 12 knots to do it. But tonight it is just me and the creaking lines and splashes of the waves hitting the hulls.

I am going to try posting this now while underway, so I hope it works. Thanks to all for your well wishes and nice send off. We promise to write often and would love to hear from you too.

Steve

South Pacific Crossing

Comments [8] | | More

Steve
03/22/2010, San Francisco, California

Greetings,

Thanks for checking out our blog. We are running around getting all the last minute and some not so last minute things done.

We leave San Fran on Thursday and sail direct to Santa Barbara. Then to LA to pick up our friend Kurt who will make the crossing to the Marquesas with us.

We are getting excited!!!

We promise to write more often this time.

South Pacific Crossing

Comments [2] | | More

Steve
03/14/2010, Somewhere near the equator

Second attempt to send a remote posting with an attachment

South Pacific Crossing

Comments [3] | | More