04/22/2011, Out on the ocean
Another day has passed and with it, more water and ground. We made 124 miles over the last 24 hours and we've come 1588. We're at least past the half way point(we think)after 13 days at sea. We may have as many as 14 more days depending on what we run into farther South. The winds have stayed the same--about 12 knots out of the Northeast and the swells are at 5 to 7 feet with an occasional BIG one(up to about 12 feet) coming through. Zephyr rides right up and down the other side as they pass. We on the other hand get tossed about like drunken sailors. We learned long ago to hang on to everything and anything. Ever try to get dressed one handed. The first few times it is a bit of a challenge. So as of now, we're at 07 44.059N 124 51.969W headed for about 08 North and 126 West. That's where we will try and head as far South as possible to get through the ITCZ(InterTropical Convergence Zone).
As Tracy and I sat in the cockpit discussing what we found important for our trip, a list began to form. Here's the MOST important of the things we have on board the we BOTH feel are important. Number one===Our Hydrovane self steering system. It attaches to the stern of the boat and has a rudder on the bottom. The top section has a cloth covered(keep a spare cloth) that you angle into the winds as your boat moves forward. If the wind is too strong over one side, it pushes the vane to the side activating the gears on the rudder to shift the boat back on course. Not really sure exactly how it works(lots of expensive parts in there) but it does. Once set, it requires a minimal amount of care. A glance or two every now and again to make sure it keeps you on course. It doesn't eat, sleep, or drink. It does it's job and our has been wonderful. There are several different types and manufacturer around--Monitor, Sayes, Aires to name just a few. Now lots of boats only carry electronic ones but even if you have spares, they all depend on your electrical system and your ability to make the power to run them. If your generator fails or your engine doesn't like to start(to keep your batteries charged) you could be in a bit of a pickle. If(God forbid) your boat gets hit by lightening, all your electronics will be fried. With our Hydrovane, he just keeps on working. We call him "James"because he always takes us where we want to go--"home James". We can't imagine hand steering for the three weeks plus it takes to get to the Marquesas.
I'll post more over the next few days until you have a better idea of what we use out here and what doesn't work out here.
Tracy's two cents:
The clouds are thickening up again and it will probably rain sideways again, hey the windows in the dodger need to be washed again, they were so sparklely clean for a whole day! The lumps and bumps in the boats motion made doing dishes an unbelievable chore today, nothing would stay put, I have to figure out a new way to make the microwave stay put, right now we have velcro on tabs attached to the counter, but the motion is too much for it and the whole thing goes flying. Right now, I shoved the handle of a putty knife under it to wedge it, and so far so good.
Yesterday, I got really sunburned. I don't even remember the sun shining, but there you go. My back and neck are seared. Lying in bed hurt, the heat of the cabin felt throbby hot, so I finally resorted to a trick I did while at Lake Powell during late summer. I laid a wet washrag that had been wrung out over my burnt skin then I spritzed myself with water and went to bed with a fan straight on my shoulder and neck. With occasional respritzes of water, all was well. Today, it's tolerable.
Oh, we are having more and more difficulty getting through with Sailmail to post this blog and emails in and out, so if there is a day or two or three you don't hear anything, don't freak out, it's just because we can't connect with Sailmail.
Squid count yesterday: 2 Flying fish: 1 Only one boat of the 10 that left Puerto Vallarta the same time we did has caught any fish, and it wasn't us!
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Comments [3]
04/21/2011, Out on the ocean
We had winds through the night up to 37 knots and luckily we had taken two reefs in the mainsail. With that and the small forestaysail, we still managed to do 134 miles(total 1464) so we were cooking through the darkness. At dawn, the squalls hit and we were nicely cleaned by Mother Nature with LOTS of nice fresh water to get off all the salt residue that had been building p over the last two weeks. We spent most of the night heading South with the winds coming from the Northeast so a rolly down wind sail again as the swells were from the North. We're now at 09 13.747N 123 57.745W with the motor on as the winds have just about died and those that are left have no clue as to where they are coming from. Toss in the residual swell from last nights big winds and you have a mess out here. As much as I don't like doing it, we fired up the engine and took off for another of the waypoints furnished by our weather router. He wants us at 08N 126W to plan for our crossing the equator. The way the winds and swells have been, we have been doing a reverse "Z" course. Many hours heading a mostly westerly course and then a turn to the left and almost straight South for another mess of miles. Then right and west again. We've been doing this for the last several days and it's the only safe way to make headway Southwest to where we need to go. So, all the sails are down and we just do what we have to do. Not much more to say. It's just another day our here. Keeping alert to the winds and swells and trying to get where we have to go.
Tracy's two cents: It is really uncomfortable right now, rolling from gunwale to gunwale, I'm shocked the cat's aren't frothing at the mouth. I'm surprised I'm not frothing at the mouth! The wind gauge is just going around in circles as we pitch and roll. Before all this started, I took time and sort of defrosted the freezer and rearranged the meats, then I went through the refrigerator and took out all the old that needed to be pitched. We had a very simple lunch today, smoked gouda and crackers for me and leftover chicken curry salad on tostitos for Bill.
I just watched Snowshoe judge the pitch and roll of the boat then hike himself up the cat tree to the barrel portion where he lays down and hangs his head out the end of the barrel. He looks like a dead cat stuffed into a tube. So on and on we roll from side to side. I think I'll go back outside where there is fresh air. Cabin temp is 87.2, humidity is 70% water temp is 81.
Two flying fish last night and two squid...haven't had those for a while.
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04/20/2011, Out on the ocean
Another 24 hours gone and making progress across this BIG ocean. With the wind out of the Northeast and the swells out of the North, it continues to be a rolly and rocky ride. One minute you're healed over to 30 degrees to port and the next 25 degrees to starboard. Over and over and over all day and all night. Side to side with a bit of bow to stern action thrown in for fun. You lie in bed(if you can) with your back up against the side panels that hold the mattress in place and put a pillow in front of you and hold on. Or, if you have more guts, you lie on the port side settee cushion(only about 19 inches wide) and rock and roll there. Most of the movement is toward the port side so it may keep you on the cushion though if a really rough roll comes in, you are out of there and on the floor. Boy, sailing is fun! We did just 3 hour watches last night instead of 4 as conditions required you to be watching constantly for wind changes where it could throw Zephyr in the wrong direction.
We're currently at 10 42.510N 123 08.304W on a course of 250T. We're going to gybe and change course in a couple of hours to put us on a more southward course toward the equator. The wind will be over the port side but the wave will continue to plow into our stern. We've made good time over the last 24 hours covering 138 miles. Not bad at all. We've done 1330 miles so far out of the normal 3000 to get to the Marquesas so we are almost half way in 11 days. Another day or so and we will be half way. At least another 5 days just to the equator. The swells are at about 5-7 feet so we go up one side and down the other continually being hit from the stern. Man, let me tell you , it gets OLD!!!! You hang on to anything and everything to move around the boat. I've got the cuts and bruises to prove what happens if you loose your handhold.
Tracy's two cents:
I've thought and thought about what to do in this particular entry, so we're going to go into the galley (kitchen) and I'm going to let you know what works and what hasn't worked. It has been rough enough that really involved cooking just isn't going to work. I made up a meal plan, breakfast, lunch and dinner for four weeks. I look at it and laugh...what on Earth was I thinking???! I had down really involved meals that require lots of pots and pans. How dumb (or naive) was I?
I brace myself against the wall opposite the stove. This gives me access to the stove and the counter that houses the refrigerator. Bill made up a board (made of a plastic cutting board) covered with drilled holes and then made pegs to go into the holes where ever I desired, so I can put all the ingredients of a dish on this board so everything doesn't slide all over. It is my extra hands. This board fits over the sinks, so if anything spills, it doesn't matter. I use the pressure cooker as my "pot" of choice. It has steep sides, so nothing sloshes over and if I boil any water, I just put the lid on and twist it to lock it so if it does leap off the stove I don't get burned. I have found that dinner has to be really a simple affair. Try and not use more than four or five ingredients. My spices are in racks from Cost Plus that fit my spice bottles exactly and they are within easy reach just behind the refrigerator. That way, I don't have to get into the spice cabinet under the companionway stairs. I made lists of where all our food is in the boat, but if I had it to do again, I would have put all ingredients together for any given meal. Just going under the settee cushions is an ordeal and I've found that I'll do almost anything not to have to spend more than the absolute minimum time having things fall into the hole just created by moving a bin of food. I do try to have all my meats in one spot and all the fruits and veg in another dedicated spot.
One thing that has worked for me is a wire basket about 15X8x7" high. I have it right next to the microwave. This actually came out of our wine refrigerator in Denver. In it I put often used things,like our insulated glasses (Costco), tea bags, garlic bulbs, fresh ginger, etc, just to keep them handy. I put some no slide fabric under and it does an admirable job. The key is to stay out of the cabinets as much as possible.
Doing dishes...I heat my water in the teakettle and then put 5 sec. worth of boiling water into the left sink with a squirt of detergent then count to ten with the cold water faucet into that sink, just the right temp for washing dishes. All the dirty dishes are piled as securely as possible again the fiddle rail next to the stove. I put the clean dishes, but not rinsed into the right sink. I then empty the left sink and put the remaining boiling water into the left sink then cool the water down with cold water. I gimbal the stove and put my collapsible dish drainer on the stove, I then rinse the dishes and place them into the wildly swing drainer. It is hard to think that the stove is always level and you and the rest of the boat are not, but nothing falls out and it is easy to dry the dishes. I store our plastic take out dishes in the microwave. These have worked out really well, no breakage. Applebees and Chicken Teriyaki places and BIll's favorite--Tokyo Joe's have wonderful bowls and covers that we use as plates.
Anyway, that's a peak into the inner working of a galley slave.
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04/19/2011, Out on the ocean
It's been a tough last 24 hours with winds in the upper teens to low 20's and primarily from the North. Swells are coming from the Northeast so we are rolling quite a bit as we head South. We're at 11 30.851N 121 06.399W on a course of 173T doing about 5.5 knots in 5 foot swells. We actually covered 130 miles in the last 24 hours so that's a nice improvement. I'd take a few less miles for a smoother ride though. We've now covered 1192 miles of a trip that is about 3000 so we are getting there though not even half way in 10 days. Due to the wind, we are actually heading back East slightly so that the waves are hitting our stern at a better angle. We took down the spinnaker late yesterday afternoon once the winds started hitting 20 knots and put up the main and forestaysail for the night. The winds took us more west than south so we gybed about 0030 and headed farther south. We've left the sail in that configuration and will change them in an hour or so so that we start heading more west and south. Our router wants us to head for about 8 degrees North and 126 West to prepare for crossing the equator. We haven't gotten his latest forecast--due yesterday so we will see what new insights he has for us when I get on the SSB radio in a few hours.
About 0800, one of the blocks that controls the boom vang, a set of block and tackle that pulls the sail down toward the deck exploded just as we were having breakfast. Too much strain and perhaps some age thrown in for good measure. I pulled out one of our spares (can't carry too many parts you know) and snapped on the life jacket and went forward to the mast and replaced it. Took longer to find the replacement part than it took to replace it.
Not much sleep last night due to the winds and unruly seas so both of us are quite tired today. Still too rolly and hot for a good nap but we will try this afternoon so we will be ready for the night.
Tracy's two cents:
There really isn't much to add, Bill covered everything. Blue was nervous because of the noise from the washing machine of an ocean we are in, so she wanted to cuddle and knead on my arm, with her claws out. Ouch! I gave up sleeping on the settee, so I put the seat cushion on the floor and tried again to get to sleep. I think I finally between a couple of installments slept about 2 hours. Not nearly enough for this 8 - 10 hour a day normally for me.
We played a few games of dominoes yesterday while we under the spinnaker, but all that stopped when the boat broached with a 27kt. wind gust, then we changed the sails. Hopefully, more sleep tonight and we'll all be in better humor and spirits.
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04/18/2011, Out on the ocean
We've made it 111 miles in the last 24 hours and all because of our Spinnaker. We hoisted it yesterday late morning and left it up all night. It's the first time we have ever flown a Spinnaker at night and it was a blessing. With the winds so light(6 to 8 knots) and coming from a different location than where our conventional sails(main and forestaysail) would have allowed us to go, it shoved us along just fine. Now we may have been going only 4.5 to 6 knots but at least it was faster than the other sails would have allowed us and we were in the right direction. It pushed us a bit too far West,so this morning, we moved the Spinnaker from the port(left) to the starboard(right)side of Zephyr and let her fly. The winds were such that it made us go farther South and back toward the way points our weather router recommended. We should get an update from him sometime today with new forecasts of what is coming down the road.
Not much happening out here today. We got an email from our friends(Paul & Karen) on GiGi that were supposed to be our buddy boat when we left La Cruz. We, unfortunately got delayed by two weeks so they have a good head start. Sort of glad we didn't leave with them as their average speed for the trip has been only 3.9 knots. We've done 4.9 so we're just a bit faster. It was the first two days that made the difference. They have had to motor for two full days to get past the equator due to lack of winds at some times. At other times, they faced 44 knot winds and some strong rain storms. I'll guarantee you their boat is much cleaner than ours. Being an Island Packet 45, they are a faster boat than ours anyway so if we had left the same time they did, we would have been lucky to do 3 knots. They think their crossing will take them a good 30 days. With luck, we might make it in 26. Guess time will tell.
The kids are adapting well. Blue came up in the cockpit again last night and took a walk forward before settling in on the stern deck for a snooze. Didn't last long as Zephyr is in a continual state of making noise as her fiberglass shifts and hardware goes bang in the night. There is no where you can go to for a quiet night sleep. It's just a bit less noisy in some places. This morning during my AM nap(got off watch at 0800), I kept hearing this light bang and then the clunk of something hitting metal. It ended up being the metal rod that's a handle for our Milwaukee drill rolling around in one of the storage spaces in the stern of the boat(right beside the berth. I dug it out and it was quiet(sort of) again. I actually had a decent 4 hours of sleep last night(0000 to 0400) before coming back on watch. With the Spinnaker up, there were far fewer bangs as the boom is lashed down.
We're now at 13 03.714N 120 18.983W and doing a course of 188T at about 5 knots with the wind from the North at about 10 knots. It's partly cloudy and getting hotter. It's 85 in the cabin and the water is now up to 79 degrees. It gets more swimmable every day.
Tracy's two cents:
Well, here we are on day 10 of our epic adventure. We decided to opt out of the morning net...we couldn't hear them, it is frustrating, so who needs extra aggravation? Not us. The spinnaker sail gives us a more side to side roll as we are going more down wind. Nothing ever sits still out here, not the boat, not the water, not the clouds. I zoomed our chartplotter out to the east and we are even with the north side of Nicaragua and up to the north we are even with Point Conception, north west of Santa Barbara, CA. It blows me away that we haven't cleared the west coast of the United States. It seems like we have been traveling forever.
For the next day or so we will be traveling toward the south then we will turn again to the west then make a left turn to cross the ITCZ. Ah, the ITCZ...the InterTropical Convergence Zone. They used to call it the Doldrums in years of old, it is were storms are born and veer up north. It is an area of convection, sometimes mild and sometimes moderate. Lots of lightening, lots of rain, then nothing....no wind, no clouds. It's a crap shoot. It moves constantly, moves to the north, then broadens out, then just the opposite. We are depending on our weather router to let us know when and where to cross with a minimum of yuk weather. We still have to fix the bearing at the top of the mast and we are counting on calm water to do so.
I think we have about two weeks more travel to get to the Marquesas.
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04/17/2011, Out on the ocean
It's been another 24 hours of fight, fight, fight for the winds. it's been about 10 knots, maybe if you're lucky. This has been our slowest day at only 85 miles and that includes moving the clock back to Pacific Daylight time but at the slow speeds we are going, it makes little difference. We have the spinnaker up and even it has trouble figuring out the winds. Billowing out then collapsing over and over and over again. We're trying to maintain a course of about 240T but it's far more important to try and get as much wind and you can in the sails. We can course correct later if need be. These are the things they don't tell you at the seminars before the jump. "Oh, it's all down wind sailing. Set your sails and go read a book". Poppycock I say, poppycock. The miles we have made have been for the most part hard fought with great days of 150 for the first two days but you felt like crap since there was no time to adjust to having your body get thrown all over the place and the waiting for something else to break in it's new environment.
OK, off the soapbox. We're currently located at 14 12.496N 118 59.881W as of 1310PDT. If you look at it on a map, that puts us due south from the Channel Islands off the California coast. About 1200 miles south of there. We've gone 950 miles since we left Mexico and we are still south of the California coast. Go figure.
We started out the day with light winds and the main and forestaysail up and barely drawing. We started the engine(just to see if it would and motored for about two hours to recharge the batteries and to allow me to make some water for our tanks. Our Spectra 200T has to be run about every 5-6 days to keep the membrane running right. The salinity count for our water was about 335 parts per million so it was just fine for drinking. Anything over 700ppm is too salty to add to the tanks. I checked ours several times over the hour or so it ran. We have plenty of water so that's not a problem. We just need to make sure it gets run regularly. It's one of the last things I want to see break our here. Since we can't go into any marinas(two cats on board) we are forced to make our own water.
Once we were done with the engine, down came the main and forestaysail and up went the spinnaker. It's the biggest thing we have on board and with a bit of playing will allow us to make some kind of headway. We expect a new weather update tomorrow sometime. All the boats that left with us are several hundred miles ahead of us so radio contact is getting harder and harder each day. I might have a clear contact with one of them and he has to relay what I say to the main net controller. I'd volunteered to be one of the net controllers but the power of my radio doesn't appear to be there to pull in other nor broadcast out to them. We had it checked before we left La Cruz and it was fine then so who knows.
Tracy made BLT sandwiches for lunch so that was a bit of a treat along with our once daily allowance of a coke or pepsi. I figure by the time we get to Tahiti, we will have lost a good 15 pounds. We're n longer eating like we did when we were at the marina. It's much simpler out here. Tonight is left over Mac & Cheese(homemade too). YUM!!!
Tracy's two cents:
As we glide along slowly I have lots of time just staring out over the water. Beautiful dark blue, no whitecaps (no wind) and an occasional flying fish. The fish usually start their migration around 5:00 p.m. I'm not sure if they are flying to avoid being eaten by some bigger fish or if they is simply how they get around and they are snoozing until happy hour. Who knows. Well, anyway, this morning, I'm staring out over the water and start to see evidence that there was another boat somewhere in front of us. I think it must be a "kid boat" because there are floating cut out flowers floating by. Then there is a whole paper plate , then ten minutes later cut up lime halves. A half hour goes by and then an over the hill orange. You get the picture. This is the first trash we have seem this whole week. I know what I have seen will biodegrade, but it is sad to see just the same. I'm hoping the food scraps that I've sent over the lifelines has sunk, so the boats behind us don't have to see MY trash...
It is getting warmer and more difficult to sleep. Cabin temp is 88.1 degrees, water temp is 78.6 degrees. Thank Goodness we have some fans to help circulate the air, it's not great, but it is better than nothing.
Blue kept coming up to the cockpit last night, then a sail would snap and she would head back to her perch in the foc'sle (room in the front of the boat). Snowshoe looks hot and is still shedding like crazy, I'm going to have to shave him down soon I think. I've already cut off about 4" of fur and he still has 4" to go. I'd take it down to 1", but no shorter, he needs some sun protection too.
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