November 1, 2008

At 7 AM, we exited the bay and headed way out to sea for sailing reasons that I do not need to get into, rather than staying close to shore. Although there was no wind and we were forced to motor at first, we did raise the main sail - mostly just to keep the boat from rocking too much. We had a beautiful sunrise with many colors this morning.

After about an hour and a half, the wind picked up enough (15-17 knots) so that we could turn off the motor off and see if there is sufficient when to power us through the day. There was, so we raised the other two sails (again, I will not get into the details as I'm sure it will bore you). We are now making good speed (in excess of 6 knots) under sail and the day is quite beautiful. It is warm enough to wear shorts, but perhaps too cold to go without a shirt. I'm sitting in the bow of the boat reading and taking in the view. Although I am sure I will not be able to put it into words, I will try to do so.

First, though, a break in the action. While underway you continue to monitor the VHF radio for updates, news of fish catches, etc. Sometimes one boat's radio is stronger than another's and you can only hear � of the conversation. Moments ago, there was a flurry of activity on the radio, but we could only hear � of it - from Profligate. He was asking questions about "Is everyone still on board? Are there any injuries? Do you have engine power?" Trying to put all those clues together, we assumed that someone's mast had come down. However, after about 20 minutes we figured out that they had lost steering and were adrift without steering. That happened once to me on a trip back from catalina in fairly heavy seas and it is horribly uncomfortable because you rocked by the swells because you can't set a course to minimize how the hit your boat. I guarantee people are starting to get seasick over there. We wish them the best. Note: in the Nov. 2 check in, it was announced that there in fact had been a demasting!

We do not have the 9 foot swells (at first) that we anticipated, but it is early and they are certainly building. Right now, I would estimate the swells to be approximately 4 feet. It is about 11 AM. The wind is great; if we could keep this wind for this entire leg of the journey (approximately 242 miles - if the wind cooperates and we are able to sail straight toward it, which is not likely), we would make great time while also enjoying the peace and tranquility of the wind without the and the constant and annoying sound of the engine.

Anyway, the swells are about 4 feet and I will try to describe where they are coming from. If you imagine the very front of the boat as being 12 o'clock on a clock, and the back of the boat being six o'clock on the clock, the swells are hitting the boat from approximately 4 o'clock. This causes the boat to be rocked a little bit more than we like (it causes there to be both a back and forth as well as a side to side rolling action all at the same time), due to the small size of the swells, it has not been that bad yet.

The water is deep blue in color and as I stare onto the horizon, there are many white caps where the wind blows off the top of the swell and causes a little miniature break; sometimes these white caps are rather large in size and you assume there must be a whale surfacing, but these are just larger swells getting hit by a particularly strong gust of wind.

As each swell reaches the boat, it lifts the boat up until you reach the top of the swell before dropping back down the back of the swell and into the trough between two swells. The swells are coming in at about my eye level when I am seated.

Describing the boat, Serenity, it is 43 feet long, and I would estimate that the deck is approximately 4 to 5 feet above water level. When I stand on the deck, that puts me about 10-11 feet above the water. When Serenity reaches the top of a 4 or 5 foot swell looking into the adjacent trough (the low section between two swells), it makes you look like you're about 15 feet above the trough before you drop down into the trough. It is best not to look at that action too close to the boat as you can start to feel sick pretty quickly. If you just look at and enjoy the view, however, the stomach usually does fine.

Although we have seen some signs of life (a few dolphins, two turtles, countless sea lions), it has not been extensive. However, we just passed through a huge pod of dolphins - hundreds of them. They were, as usual, jumping and playing what looks like tag. Some of them hung around for awhile, but the pod was moving north and didn't, as a group, stay with us.

Final update: The swells and wind came as forecasted! We had winds of up to 28 knots and the swells were 9-12' most of the afternoon with the occasional 15' swell. Despite that, it was not as rough as you might expect. During my watch there were many, many falling stars visible as it was perfectly clear and dry. I must have seen at least one every 10 minutes and one was bright enough that it caused me to look over in its direction. It was odd in that it moved very slowly as it descended (not UFO slow, just slow for a falling star.)

The radar, however, was not working so the watch was a little more intense as you had to visually not only verify what the radar would normally tell you about traffic, but actually keep lookout for any activity. That is not so hard, but trying to figure out what direction a boat is going, or how close it will pass by, on a dark night is sometimes nerve racking. There wasn't much traffic, though, so the shift was pretty easy. During the night we changed course two times to accommodate for changes in wind shifts, but are slowly making our way southeast to our next stop, Bahia Santa Maria, the land of crazy Panga rides and clean, warm water to swim in. I can't wait.

Until tomorrow,

Paul.