03/17/2010, somewhere in the Pacific
Picture is of Donna fixing a snack for us!
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03/17/2010, Muertos
Here's a picture showing what we wear, life jacket and harness that attaches us to the boat in rough water or after dark, when only one of us is in cockpit.
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03/17/2010, Muertos, on the Baja
Picture is one Donna took during the crossing of dolphin leaping.
The good news for us - we made it safe and sound, though a bit tired across the ocean to the Sea of Cortez area, traveling 348 nautical miles (equivalent of 400 miles) in 76 hours. We had a day and a half of glassy water with nice winds, and then, it turned ugly. Not to bore you with too much detail, our trip is summarized as follows: winds 20-27 knots, waves 8-10 feet high, water/spray over the bow, 2 squids (4" variety) that landed inside the cockpit during a major wave, a few new bruises and calluses, dolphins , whales, turtles, birds of various types, one broken mirror, and a bit sleep deprived. Yes, it can get tough, but it also is rewarding with stars so brilliant, the waves and wind competing for priority, the sound of dolphins swimming beside you. What do we do on the passages? At times, we can read and use our headlamps at night. We are tethered to the boat, as neither of us wants to wake up and find the person on watch missing - just not going to happen to us. We spend time talking about what projects we'll will do when we get home, where we want to sail next year.
I think, a year or so ago, I was starting to put a list in my head of things I probably shouldn't/couldn't do because of our age - sort of "let go of the dream". I think I have to pull out that list and rethink it. It is very rewarding, personally, to experience challenging times (midnight, cold, tired, tethered to a life line and bouncing about) and find out that you have the stamina and will power to do it and "keep on smiling." This has provided us with some very good conversations, laughter, as well as reflective times. Darryl is sleeping in the cabin now, following his watch, I can see first glance of Baja, and the sun is just coming up --- and my coffee never tasted so good!
For those of you curious, when we do crossings, we keep a log on the hour of conditions and position of the boat. Here's a couple of sample hours:
• Sunday 1607 - N 22.53.311; W 107.10.816 Wind on our nose at 0-10o starbird, Course: 292, speed 4.9 knotts, dolphins in distance, staysail and reefed main up
• Monday 1204 - N 23.33.561 W 108.29.049 Wind 15-17 knots coming 30O starbird. Waves 6' Motor off, all 3 sails up, speed 6 Knots, bearing 267; large tug? Pulling another boat? At 11:00 (position) and may be moving across our bow. Radar shows 3 miles away, can't see red or green lights.
We will rest here today in Muertes and then move on into the Sea of Cortez; our plan is to find a nice anchorage and stay put for 4-6 days and clean up the boat, fix a few things, enjoy the day. We actually found time to each paint a picture on a rest day, before we left for the crossing. Best to you all. Wind is starting to howl.
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03/17/2010, Crossing
Saturday March 13 -By 0720 this morning, we have our anchor pulled up and are on our way. The sea is calm enough that, after breakfast, we take warm luxurious showers, as we don't know what the seas will bring later. The day is blue skies but cooler. Dolphins play around our boat as we leave the bay. We see many shrimp boats dotting the seas around the bay and, we are surprised that the depth of the sea is not much over 64 feet deep 15 miles out. At 10 AM, we see whales lounging on the surface, just so lazily. We have 312 miles to go, or more, depending on our route. We pull up all the sails, but not enough wind to keep them full, so we add the motor and manage to move along between 4-5 knots, which is decent, given the fact that the wind is on our nose. Late in the afternoon, we see whales breaching and blowing off in the distance and watch them perform for 20 minutes. Then a pod of dolphins join us for a time. Sun sets at 1830 or so and the stars are brilliant. We have lentil soup for dinner. Darryl wants the first watch, so I try to sleep around 8 PM, after he harnesses himself to the boat. It would be a shock to wake up and find one of us missing, so we're pretty careful about such things. (Darryl) Around 2200 (10 PM for land lubbers) I see a white light in the distance barely moving from right to left. When I look at it with binoculars I can see a red light apparently behind the white light. They appear to be moving together, but the red light seems to be at least a quarter of a mile behind the red. They are about eight miles off our beam so I alter course to avoid any close call. As we get closer it appears that the white light is a tug and it is towing a boat, the red light. Definitely something to avoid at all costs. The phosphorescence coming off our bow wave is dazzling. The greenish glow is mesmerizing and eerie. At 2300, Donna wakes up and takes over until 3:30 AM. While I think we both "dread" the lack of sleep for these days, there are benefits. (Donna) On my watch, I'm reading a book with my headlamp and hear, "poof - poof" and I know that the dolphins have come to visit. I can't see them, but I can hear them swimming beside the boat and their breaths are distinctive. It's a long night, but we do it and both try to take naps off and on. We have potato salad for breakfast Sunday morning and watch a parade of whales, turtles with boobie birds resting on top of their shells, and some leaping dolphins. Seas are flat and look like black ink, speed is slow, and we don't see anyone else out here. The wind did not get over two knots so it was motor sailing throughout the day. In the afternoon, haze develops, so we use radar, just to make certain nothing creeps up on us. At 4:00 Pm I note in our log that we've traveled 143 miles so far toward our first anchorage on the Baja Peninsula. We are still closer to the mainland than we are to the Baja. Our half way point is still 10 to 12 hours away; kind of like the "slow boat to China". I created some laughter for Donna this afternoon when a sea gull was trying to land on our rigging. I was shouting, clapping and waving my arms in an attempt to scare him off. He made several attempts to land but the crazy guy shouting: "Jonathan, you can't get a free ride on our boat. We didn't tell you to fly this far from land". Donna will be doing a google search for homes with padded rooms once we get back in internet range.
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03/12/2010, Matanchen
Friday AM:
Last night was a restless night with lots of rolling and rocking of the boat in the anchorage. We left anchorage at 0715. We motor sailed for a couple of hours then the wind picked up to 16 to 20 knots with occasional gusts to 23. Since Luffin It is a fairly heavy boat she prefers winds that are over 15 knots. We put a single reef in the main when it started hitting 20 knots. She was happily doing 6.5 to 7.3 knots and Donna was unhappily trying to make sandwiches standing at a 20 degree angle, not an easy task, but the end result was tasty. Because we were making such good time we made it to the anchorage in Matanchen by 1400. Only three other sailboats in a large bay that could easily hold 100. We have hoisted our outboard onto the aft rail and put our dinghy on top of our forward cabin for the crossing over to the La Paz area. Since we won't be close to any beaches towing it for close to 400 miles makes no sense. We will check the weather in the morning to determine which direction we will take to get to La Paz. Apparently, the southern part of the Baja peninsula is getting some heavy winds for the next couple of days so we may head north along the mainland coast before heading across. As we leave Matanchen to head for the Sea we will be out of cell and internet coverage for close to seven days.
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03/11/2010, Arrived in Guayabitos
One of my favorite pictures, of Darryl, chasing his hat all over the bay!
We had a nice evening in Punta Mita and joined our friends, Sharon and Dick for dinner. The night was a bit rocky and we awoke to cooler weather. Weather report says "Pineapple Express, and we've experienced that today, with wind on our nose at 15-18 knots and waves from 5-7 feet. We got a late start this morning as we had to go on line and order a new anchor windlass; it will be shipped to the La Paz Marina and we'll install it there. Ours is just not working and so dear Darryl is having to haul the dang thing up by hand. As he says, "It's my exercise program." The "bandaid" fixes he was performing turned out to be temporary and short lived. The motor was worn to a point where minor re-alignments would not cure the problem. The cost of repair parts turned out to be about 75 percent of a brand new windlass. So, with a late start and the weather, we adjusted our plans to stop at Guayabitos, a bit closer and then we'll go all the way to Metanchen tomorrow and skip Chacala. Guayabitos Cove turns out to be an area of three small towns. It looked like an interesting area to explore on our next trip down here. We were able to anchor on the south side of a small island called La Pena. It sheltered us a little from the rollers that were coming in from the west, but it was less than totally comfortable. We've happily discovered that we still have cell and internet coverage, despite sailing several miles off shore. 1745 we have arrived and are anchored behind a little island in the bay of Guayabitos. N21.02.672 W105.16.250
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