Panama to Los Angeles
26 April 2017 | 33 05.422'N:117 38.319'W, Santa Ana - California
CC
The Kipper's Nickers
We crossed into US waters at 0354 yesterday morning and by 0545 had tied up alongside the Police & Customs pontoon in San Diego. I have to admit it was a bit of a wow feeling, even through we are not through with this delivery yet; there are 81 nm left to Long Beach.
Unfortunately at immigration we were beaten to the draw by a cruise ship and Police & Customs "staff shortages," but they eventually came on board at 0915 and we were cleared by 10.00am after removal of what was left of our meat and eggs. We then spent a useful day catching up on sleep and enjoying the comfortable facilities of the San Diego Yacht Club.
It is now early on Wednesday morning, flat calm, big oceanic swells and Zephyr has a further 58 nm to reach Long Beach. Once there, preparations will begin for TransPac. The boat must be weighed and that means taking off everything, from the liferaft, all the sails and down to the teaspoons. There are also some inevitable maintenance tasks and the genset will be replaced. New sails arrive for the race next month. For the race itself, we have discovered that the routing takes you on a dead beat to windward for 2-3 days until you reach the NE Trades. Once you have found those, then it is a sleigh-ride to Hawaii for about 2,000 nm - the kipper's nickers.
I myself will leave Zephyr tomorrow after 2 months on board and almost 5,000nm. It has been so much fun to sail with Carolan, Janette, David, Patrick and Seth, thank you very much for your company. I should also mention another member of the crew, Pedro Ximinez, who has been excellent for morale, never seasick and wonderful in the galley. In short every delivery skipper should have a Pedro on board or somebody like him. If you want to know more about Pedro and how to get hold of him, contact me at chriscopeland777@btinternet.com.
Zephyr has now completed almost 10,000 nm since leaving Lyminton on the 16 September last autumn. Micky has been on board for almost all of these miles, so on his behalf I would like to say this is truly a significant achievement.
It remains for me to thank Michael Grade and Micky for allowing me back on board the mighty Zephyr once more. They have been generous to a fault and I am hugely, hugely grateful. Hopefully I will be back on board by the end of June to prepare for race start on 5 July.
Chris C
PS. Time is now 1500. That's probably it on the blogs until race start. We expect to arrive in Long Beach at about 1645 this afternoon. We now have 49nm left to run.