Christmas in the South
23 December 2012 | Not Alaska
Billy Holidays
We're far from the sea, here in the bosom of the Ennis family in the deep South. For a few weeks, we've laid down our preparation efforts to cross the Pacific, but will continue them on our return to California in late December as we visit Conni's family.
We purchased a desalinator from Cruise RO, a 20 gallon per hour unit powered by a 2000 Watt Honda generator, also purchased. These two items are now in La Paz, courtesy of the kindness and effort of Cruise RO's Rich and our friends on S/V Eagle, Tom and Jeanne. Thanks to you all.
We have to replace our roller furl, the "window shade" sail rolling device for the jib (the foresail). The torque tube, part of the main casting, broke. I repaired it for the last leg, but not permanently, and certainly not well enough to cross the Pacific. We purchased a new, "last year's model" of Harken roller furler that should be a direct fit. The stainless steel cable on which it resides also needs to be replaced since the cable has permanently swaged ends. We'll buy this cable with one permanent end attached and a removable end for the other end while we're in Oakland. We'll haul it back to AK with us and I'll haul it down with me in January.
We have officially registered for the 2013 Pacific Puddle Jump and plan to leave La Paz in mid-March, 2013 and sail to Puerto Vallarta, on the mainland. We'll leave for the South Pacific from there. With so much installation/repair work to accomplish (desalinator, roller furl, a few important repair projects), I'll return to Mexico in late January and work a few weeks before returning to AK. We'll stay there for a while, then return to Mexico for our Leg 6.
We have our third crew member. Previously, we had sworn that we'd do everything ourselves and dreaded another personality interfering with our smoothly working system. However, we had so much fun on the Baja Haha with two more crew, and the night watches were so much easier, that we opted to ask a third person.
Conni and I both made a short list and only one name was on both: Chip Derrick. Interestingly, he had offered several times to join us for the crossing, so when we both had his name, our request for him to join us seemed to follow naturally. He quickly assented. He's a retired engineer and, more importantly, a respectful and easy-going person. We both enjoy his humor and good nature. Although we agree on few philosophical ideas, he shows no disrespect for, nor distaste in, our thoughts. He's a live-and-let-live guy. He's also a Southern Gentleman, with a quiet drawl and flawless manners and decorum. He's simply a competent, industrious person and easy to be around. His presence means a four hour night watch rather than a six hour watch, as well as an extra strong hand when we need it.
I posted a draft of our journey on the site, so people will have a sense of where we'll be going and what we'll be doing. Few seem to know that we send in our latitude/longitude with each blog post, and that information is posted on a world map on the right side of the blog page. As we cross the Pacific, we'll post blogs every few days and those positions will be available to you. All of our communications with the world will be via the single sideband radio that I installed last leg. It can send and receive text but the system is much too slow to send photos or update a website. All of that must wait until we are near a Wifi source. In other words, all we'll have is our blog site to inform people of events, crew health, and such.
The decision to purchase the desalinator (watermaker) that we did was in response to several outstanding problems. We have labored long and hard to use only renewable energy (wind, water, and solar) to power our travels. While at anchor, we simply could not keep up with demand, even though we are on the low end of usual cruiser's use: fewer than 100 Ahr/day. We had been considering low energy watermakers but they made lower quantities of water: 4-6 gallons per hour. Even at this rate, we might have needed to run the engine when making water. In La Paz, we happened to be assigned a slip next to S/V Eagle whose crew of Jeanne and Tom owned a Cruise RO watermaker. Made to be powered by a Honda generator, it makes 20 gallons per hour, a sizable quantity of water. In addition, we can use the excess Honda output to charge the batteries and all the various electrical devices on board. In a single blow, we eliminated two vexing problems, energy regeneration and desalinization. Running for more than 5 hours on a 1.1 gallon of gasoline, and our making 20 gallons of water per hour, means that a single five-gallon jug of gasoline will produce 500 gallons of water plus several re-charges of the batteries. That's a LOT of water! I'd rather not take any gasoline at all, but the dinghy motor uses it, so we have to have some, so why not 5-10 gallons in one or two jugs? We'll also carry one five-gallon jug of diesel and one jug of water, just in case.
While we have these itms to install, and some sizable repairs to complete, we see no other items to buy for the trip. I'm so surprised that we've accomplished all of this!
We know that few read these words, and perhaps the entire blog is simply to allow us to voice our thoughts, but we'd like to thank everyone for the many years of support and good wishes. Christmas is a good time to officially thank our family and friends for all that they've done to help us along. Conni and I often think of ourselves as isolated, and geographically, sometimes we are. But in the end, we are able to follow this dream because of all of you. Thank you.
Be safe during the holidays because we need you all.