Worrall Wind Update - Marquesas Bound

Day 11, Saturday, April 17, 2010

UTC/Local: 2020/1:20 PDST
Latitude: 14 30.450 N
Longitude: 118 34 553 W

Conditions:

It's a great day! The sun is out, the water is blue, the waves have calmed way down, and the wind is blowing from our back and is expected to stay light for the next couple of days. It's 85 degrees out and delightful to finally open the hatches and ports and let some fresh air pass through the boat. They've been battened down for 48 hours.

We are celebrating our 1000 miles on passage today. We aren't quite that far off the coast of Mexico, but with our tacking back and forth we have covered the qualifying distance for Seven Seas Cruising Association Commodore Candidacy. Our next step is to live on board for at least another 5 more months.

Not is it only our 1000 mile celebration (spaghetti, meatballs, a glass of red wine, and brownies today!), but we can cross off a few things on the critical list. Russ got the engine up and running, and Garyn cut down the broken whisker pole by 3 feet, we are once again running wing on wing in the direction we want - south, southwest, the refrigerator temperature has appropriately set, and the water and solar panels are producing 18 amps per hour. We are almost caught up on our sleep, but not quite. There are many reasons for a celebration tonight after weathering some pretty uncomfortable and uncertain conditions. Russ and Garyn are a great fix-it team. I'm the gopher, watch captain "Hang on, big rollers incoming" , safety officer "Don't go out there unless you're clipped on" and galley queen "eat your spinach, drink your water" keeping the crew fed and hydrated. So we got through this leg of the first 1000 mile at sea adventure. Go team!!

All is very well on Worrall Wind.

Worrall Wind Update - Marquesas Bound

Days 9 & 10, April 15 & 16 2010
Latitude: 14 44.045 N
Longitude: 117 19.71 W
By the way, our Find Me Spot is taking longer and longer to upload to a satellite. Use the Pangolin link on our Blogspot for daily position reports. Please let us know when Spot no longer seems to be reporting.
Conditions:
The last couple of days have been difficult. After our at-sea repair of our loose gooseneck, we were in good shape. Our weather charts and grib files are not exactly in sync, however, with what we are experiencing. The wind is stronger and the seas are bigger. So much for being the Coconut Milk Run. It's more like a milkshake run. Thursday morning about 11:00 a.m. after my 1:00 - 7:00 a.m. watch, I was just laying down for a nap. Garyn and Russ were making a sail change and wanted to head into the wind and reef the main sail. We usually turn on the motor to help us stay into the wind when reefing. Well the motor wouldn't start. It would crank, but not start. Long story short. Our exhaust pipe sucked water into the engine. We had not had a lot of following seas so Russ had not closed the exhaust check since we have been starting the motor a little every day. Apparently our heavier passage boat allowed water to get in whether the seas were following or not. We closed this off immediately so we wouldn't get any more water, and will have to turn the exhaust check valve after each engine use.
No one got to take naps. Russ had been up until 1:00 a.m. and I had been up since 1:00 a.m. We worked on getting the water out of the bilge (not a lot, but enough), out of the engine, taking apart the fuel injection unit, removing the fuel injectors, and cranking over the motor to get water out of the engine. Russ was looking exhausted, but hoped to get the motor going before night fall.
Well, that wasn't going to happen. We had been running a beautiful wing on wing downwind course with 15 knots of wind when within 5 minutes the sea state and winds changed dramatically and faster than we could depower our main which already had one reef. A huge fast moving swell caught us and twisted the boat and the whisker pole snapped and broke. We pulled in the jib, and pulled the boat into the wind and swell so that we could put in another reef then fall off and be on a broad reach. It wouldn't be going south but west and the swell would be at our stern or beam most of the night. Coming into the wind without motor assist was impossible. After three tries, we muscled the main down to a double reef. (And yes, we are all harnessed up with life vests and clipped into our jacklines). We fell off and debated about doing a jibe, but decided it was getting dark and a jibe would take us to the south east not the south west. We decided to just go west and set up Heidi our wind steering system.
Heidi worked well in the beginning while we went inside, closed down the engine repair business for the night, and put everything away, tying down as much as possible. Thank goodness I had made lots of Mexican soup, and only had to reheat it. To give you an idea how rough the seas were, we ate the soup out of cups with lids. (No where near the computer!) By dark, the winds were gusting 24 knots, and the seas were 9-12 feet high steep and six seconds apart. Heidi couldn't keep up and we knew we would be hand steering most of the night. We are all tired. Garyn was the most rested and did the lion's share of the steering from about 4:00 p.m. until 1:00 a.m. Russ came on at 1:00 and steered until 7:00. Garyn spelled him for an hour during that time. I stayed up with both of them, recording in the log, making coffee and hot chocolate and dozed for about two hours..not enough for a gal who likes her beauty rest. 2 hours in 36 isn't enough. Russ hasn't had much more. As I write this we are all very tired. We've decided to suspend engine repair today. The Honda is going, the sun is out, and water turbine are cranking out the amps. Heidi is back on duty and for the most part is doing a good job steering the boat as the winds and seas have dropped a little bit.
We are safe and very happy to have a pilot house steering station. The boat is dry and handling the seas well, although we are uncomfortable with the rail to rail rolling. Fortunately, no one is scared or sick and none of us are taking any sea sickness pills, so we are thankful about that. We are keeping hydrated and are taking turns napping and catching up on sleep today because it doesn't look like the winds and sea are going to calm down until tomorrow so we have another long night ahead of us.
For now all is well but could be a little better on Worrall Wind.

Worrall Wind Update - Marquesas Bound

Day 8 - Wednesday - April 14, 2010
UTC/Local: 1000 / 3:00 a.m. PDST
Latitude: 15 10.711 N
Longitude: 115 06.201 W
Conditions:
As I write this log, we are one week at sea :) and about 650 miles offshore from Puerto Vallarta, a little less that 1/4 of the way to the Marquesas. Now that we have a fairly constant wind (first three days out of PV was pitiful)we are making better time and averaging six knots per hour. The wind is blowing about 14 nautical miles per hour from the north east. We are on a course of 270 degrees heading due west with a reefed main, full jib and mizzen on a broad reach. The winds are coming from the northeast. I can't see the sea swell, but it is probably 6-9 feet and from the periodic strong swells on our starboard hull that rock us to port and back flogging the jib and activating the preventer on the main, the swell is coming from the north, north west. The stars are twinkling in a very black sky. I've been on watch about an hour. Garyn and Russ are sleeping.
We have had a long day after an eventful early morning as reported in update 7. When the sun finally rose and everyone was up, we adjusted our course and sails. In so doing examined all the stress and chaffing points on the boat. The screws in our boom to mast gooseneck were working their way loose and stripped the threads. Not good, but not unexpected given all of the tension and torque from wind and rocking swell. We needed to repair this right away.
We turned on the motor, and lowered all of the sails with the exception of the cutter and turned the boat to a course of 180 to run with the swell so that Garyn and Russ could go forward on the desk and work on the mast and boom without being slammed from one side to the other. You may have noticed our meanderings on SPOT. I held the southern course keeping rollers from a confused sea on the stern quarter for two hours while Russ and Garyn dug through the spare parts putting together a combination of things that would work. The upper saloon looked like mission control for the repair of Apollo 13. With assembled hose clamps, plumbers' strapping, and a thin bicycle locking cable with rubber/plastic sheathing, Russ and Garyn clamped, wrapped, and lashed the gooseneck to the mast.
At one point during the repair job, the lazy jib sheet dipped down into the opened galley hatch looping around the tea kettle handle and lifting it with a roll and then dropping it so that it fell to the floor knocking over the bottle of powdered coffee creamer on its way down making a pasty white mess all over the floor. Garyn discovered this while I was at the helm and cleaned everything up. Those lines take on a life of their own. The first day we flew the gennaker, Garyn asked me to close the aft head port as the sheet was catching. He noticed that my silk flower arrangement sans the blue bottle it was in was dangling from the sheet. The sheet had snaked into the head porthole, nagged the bottle and tossed it into the sea. I was able to save the silk flowers.
By 1:00 p.m. the repair was complete and Apollo rounded the back side of the moon. main was back up and we got back on our rocky rolly course. We were tired and hungry. I spent the rest of the afternoon in the galley, triaging vegetables, shifting things around in the refrigerator, and making a huge pot of of spicey Mexican turkey soup. We took turns cat napping, holding watch, listening to the Fountain Head, and doing laundry.
No dominoes tonight. We were all sleep deprived. I went to bed in the lower saloon by 8:00 p.m.. Russ was on watch and Garyn wasn't ready to go to bed. He was finally beginning to feel much better after his odd episode earlier in the morning and was on his computer. We have now started Day 9 and so far,
All is Well on Worrall wind

Worrall Wind Update - Marquesas Bound

Day 7 - Tuesday - April 13, 2010
UTC/Local: 0400 / 9:00 p.m.
Latitude: 15 57.364 N
Longitude: 112 48.086 W
Conditions:
We are approximately 550 miles from Puerto Vallarta and would only have 2,180 miles to go if we flew a straight line. Last night the sea swells were about 9 feet and 10 seconds apart and the wind was 12-14 knots which made for a very rocking rolling night. We single reefed the main, eased off our course to slow the boat down a bit and to heel less. Most of the night we were on a beam to broad reach and made pretty good time until early morning a few hours before dawn when the wind died. We still had the big swells so we did even more rocking until the wind came back up at dawn and the sea swells died down to 1.5 to 2 meters (4-6 feet). With the sun up, we brought the boat back to a close reach to get back on course and pickup speed.
We listened to the morning net and talked to some boats that were within 100 miles of us, some that had been behind us and had shot ahead, and some that were ahead of us that has less wind and were hoping for more. The conditions vary within just a couple of miles. Even though we knew that the one boat that passed was a fast racing J-Boat, we were feeling pretty sluggish, and more determined than ever to trim the sails and get Worrall Wind moving faster. Fortunately, we had 14-18 knot winds which helped a lot. By "breakfast" we were sailing 6.5 knots sometimes seeing a 7.
"Breakfast" was really early this morning as we decided to turn our clocks to Pacific Standard Daylight Time when we realized it was 8:00 a.m. Puerto Vallarta time and still pitch black. So we turned the clocks backwards two hours so we are currently on same time schedule temporarily as the folks at home. If you think turning the clock forward or backward in one hour increments is confusing, try two. By 10:00 a.m. our bodies were saying lunch. By 3:00 p.m. we were wanting dinner. I was ready to start my 8:00 watch at 6:00 p.m., but had to wait another two hours which also means that I won't be really going off watch until 3:00 a.m. Lucky me. Are you confused yet? So when does our 24 hour day really end in the long book, at midnight, 10 p.m. or 2 a.m.? Let me know.
Our day was pretty uneventful. Garyn worked on trying to adjust the refrigerator. The electronic sensor/thermostat started to act up just before we left. Using our rubber ducky thermometer in the refrigerator, we were able to compensate for the correct temperature, ast couple of days,some of the food in the refrigerator has started to get too cold and freeze. Garyn noticed that the electronic thermometer ss trying to reset itself and go back to normal. The compensation is no longer working. In fact, the refrigerator never seemed to be turning off…..part of the mystery of why we have been burning up the amps. Anyway we think we are getting that worked out. In the meantime, the Honda is on again tonight.
I also got to talk with Marcia from Juniata today. You may or may not know that Dave and Marcia are friends from Colfax who were the catalysts for our cruising. When we met them 15 years ago, we had just bought our little 22 foot Catalina up at Lake Almanor. They had a 25 foot Catalina and dreams to go cruising. In know time at all we had a 25 foot Catalina and dreams to go cruising with them! Boy did we have fun in those little boats and with those dreams.
She and David , currently cruising in the Sea of Cortez were listening in on the Pacific Puddle Jump Net this morning. When I asked for a radio check of boats that could hear our transmission, I was delighted to hear Marcia call in. Our Pacific Puddle Jump boats are scattered across the Pacific Ocean. Many of the boats that were in the first pack to leave are also some of the same boats that are serving as net control and it is getting more and more difficult to hear them. As we approach the middle zone, we may want to serve a turn as net control, but we need to be sure that our transmission range can do the job. Since I only heard three boats comeback to us as having heard us, I think we don't have enough range.
With the boat on a strong starboard tack, I felt pretty safe cooking in the galley today. I'd rather have the hot stuff sliding away from me as I cook. I got a little more creative than mac and cheese tonight. I made ginger sesame pineapple almond chicken over brown rice. I think it was a hit.
Hmm. So what time is it? My body says my watch shift is over, but the clock says I have two more hours before I can nod off. Garyn and Russ are sleeping soundly. Russ was curled against port cushion on the lower saloon settee which is a great place for a starboard tack sleep. Garyn was sleeping in the V-berth also on the port side. We are traveling about 5-6 knots depending on gusting winds.
About midnight, I noticed that the winds were picking up and gusting. We were traveling between 3.5 knots and 7 knots. They were also shifting around and coming more from our starboard stern quarter. Heidi was having difficulty holding course. She would round way up in a gust and fall way off in a slack wind. I wanted to depower the main a little so, I went outside, eased off the main and tightened the preventer. We came off a swell and when we did so fell off the wind enough to gybe, backwinding the jib, cutter, and the main and gybing the mizzen. Heidi got pushed over by our gybing mizzen and stuck between the lines and the bimini top. I had to wait for an opportune time to try and free her. By the time I freed her, we were off course and the cutter was sliding back and forth on its self-tacking bar. By now both Garyn and Russ have awakened to see what was going on. Clark and Nina, our friends and crew on the Baja Ha Ha can testify about the horrible clatter the cutter makes. There is no sleeping when this is going on.
By 12:30 p.m. we had everything back under control "kind of" given the changing sea state. The swells were getting larger, steeper, and faster. The wind was gusting to 20 knots. With each gust, we would round up and head into the swell. Not only were we rolling, but pitching like a hobby horse. It wasn't dangerous, just uncomfortable. Garyn went back to bed for a little while as he was due to come on watch at 1:00. Russ was wide awake and decided to stay up with me for a while as we monitored and adjusted for the changing conditions.
By the time Garyn got back up and on watch, it was about 1:30. I stayed up with everyone until 2:00 then Russ and I decided to go downstairs and see if we could get some sleep. I was just drifting off when Russ woke me up. Garyn wasn't feeling well. He was light headed, cold and clammy almost like shock. Below his belly button he was complaining of a painful lump. We examined it and it looked like some sort of insect bite. It was quite red and hot. We gave him a benedryl for allergic reaction which we think he was having, put some anesthetic/antibiotic on the bite. He rested with head down for about 10 minutes and recovered from the light headedness and claminess. Thank goodness. We'll have to check out the V-berth when the sun comes up and the waves calm down to see if there is some suspicious insect lurking in his stuff.
Once again, I went back to bed at 3:00. Russ decided to stay up with Garyn a while longer. It was quite a ride. My Grandma Ogden would have said, holy Christopher Columbus! Very appropriate. I awoke at 5:30 as dawn was breaking, made coffee, and have been on watch so the guys can get some sleep. But now I'm into Day 8, but will continue this later this evening. Just know that between yesterday at 1500 Zulu and today at 1500 Zulu, we made a gain of 123 miles, and despite the early morning events,
All is well on Worrall Wind.

Worrall Wind Update -Day 6 - Marquesas Bound

Worrall Wind Update - Marquesas Bound
Day 6 - Monday - April 12, 2010
UTC/Local: 2400, 0700
Latitude: 16 52.9962 N
Longitude: 111 00.532 W
Conditions:
I had the late shift or I should say the first shift of the new day from 1:00-8:00 a.m. this morning. I think I must have been tired as I see I have posted two Saturdays. Day 5 should have been Sunday. Today is day 6 at sea. We were sailing wing on wing all night with great winds. We traveled 22 hours wing on wing and have sailed all of today as well. From midnight to midnight this morning until this evening we will have covered over 100 miles. The winds have been blowing 18-20 knots all day with lots of white caps and large swells coming from the North West. We changed course at dawn to sail up wind. It was so windy we needed to reef the main, but for a while we were heeled over doing almost 7 knots. Yippee! The seas is a little bumpy, but it feels good to be moving. The boys have renamed the Hydrovane from Hydro to Heidi. Heidi works hard, keeps us sailing in the right direction, and never complains. Garyn and Russ have been ecstatic today with the amps that our water turbin and solar panels have been producing.
I had a busy night last night and ran the batteries down checking the radar with boat traffic, fishing boats and sailing boats. Today I've spent a good portion of the day indoors catching up on lost sleep and reading. I'm reading a Dan Brown book (DiVinci Code author), called Deception Point. I'm enjoying it. Garyn has plowed through 3 of the 4 books he brought. Russ is reading Sex, Lies, and Spinnakers by Steve Van Slyke.
We've seen some boobies, flying fish, and jumping dolphins today. We had hot dogs, mac and cheese for dinner….comfort food. Russ is topside keeping watch. Garyn is taking a nap before his watch begins at 9:00. Me…..a pedicure if I can catch my toes in the bouncing boat, a shower, and a full night's rest. Ciao!
Thanks for the emails. We are enjoying them!
All is well on Worrall Wind

Worrall Wind Update Marquesas Bound - Day 5

Passage from La Cruz, Mexico to Hiva Oa, Marquesas
Day 5 - Sunday - April 11, 2010
UTC/Local: 0700, 0200
Latitude: 17 51.753 N
Longitude: 110 10.341 W
Conditions:
When I went off watch last night around 2:00, we had been sailing with main, jib, and mizzen consistently with wind from the North West off our starboard beam, boat speed about 4.5 knots with 12 knots of wind. When I awoke, the wind had shifted North North West which was a run (wind directly on our back) right toward our course line. The jib and main were wing on wing in 14 knots of wind and our speed had increased to 6 knots. Whoo Hoo! It is pretty exciting to know that Worrall Wind as loaded as she is can still get up to six knots.
The barometric pressure at dawn was at 1017, and we had an 80% overcast. As the night wears on the stars are obscured by clouds that form during the early morning. Along with the increased and favorable wind today, we were also greeted with confused seas, meaning that we were seeing significant swell (9-12 feet) coming from several directions, some opposing. We rocked back and forth fairly consistently unless we got into a place where the swells collided then it was little lumpy. By mid morning we were beginning to see our first white caps on the voyage. They weren't significant, but and indication that we had a fresh breeze.
As I write this log at 2:00 a.m. on Monday morning, April 12, we are still wing on wing, traveling 4.5 - 5.5 knots. We have not had to adjust the sails all day. We had been above our course line, but intersected it about 1:00 a.m. this morning. We will continue southward and when the sun comes up, change sails and tack back. Right now we are on a beautiful run, and there are no boobies on the mast spinning on the Windex. As we glide through the water with more speed, I can hear the water rushing past our hull and can see a white wash of florescent twinkle like little fireflies in the water. Its spell binding. I cannot see the sea state as it is so dark, but the boat is not rocking as much so I suspect the swell has settled down considerably.
When everyone was up this morning, it was time to clean the outside of the boat. Our night rider, another booby on the top of our mast on the jib furler had left its calling cards all over the deck. We hooked up the saltwater hoses and washed down the decks and railings. The water temperature coming out of the hose directly from the sea is luke warm, somewhere in the low 80's. We were moving so quickly, I didn't want to throw our rubber ducky thermometer in the water fearing the bottom would be torn from the ducky and we would lose the thermometer. Checking the temp seems to be better done when we are moving more slowly. It is about 78 degrees F in the cabin this evening and 85% humidity. The decks are wet.
Despite the sun beating on our solar panels and the water turbine we are pulling behind our boat, we were still down considerably on our battery charging. Our two refrigerators, freezer, computers, and radio transmissions are a pretty big drain. We didn't run the engine today, but we did break out the Honda generator and had that running for several hours to see if we could catch up. We never caught up, so it looks like we will have to supplement the electrical use each day with either the Honda or the engine.
Our plan is to eat as much as we can out of our primary frig which is the most efficient, transfer the food from the secondary frig (least efficient) and turn that one off. Eventually, we hope to eat up all of the food in the frig and freezer, turning them both off or at least way down. At night, we walk around with our head lamps and refrain from using any overhead or supplementary lighting.
After our routine chores of washing down the decks, checking for chaffing and potential problems, examining the food stores for mold and spoilage, we spent most of the day just enjoying the ride, reading, listening to music and pod casts, checking email, etc. We used our satellite phone to download some weather information today for the first time. The data rate transmission is pretty slow, so we stopped it after 14 minutes. We got the most pertinent information confirming what we we already were experiencing in terms of the confused seas and the increased wind. The 1016 line has moved down and apparently we are riding it right now. Russ practiced with his sextant today and calculated our position to within 1 mile of our actual GPS latitude and longitude reading. He's getting better. Too many calculations for me, but it's nice to know that if the GPS goes down, Russ can figure out where we are.
All is well on Worrall Wind.

Day 4, April 10, 2010 - Marquesas Bound.

Passage from La Cruz, Mexico to Hiva Oa, Marquesas
Day 4 - Saturday - April 10, 2010
UTC/GMT: 0340 UTC, 2040 Local
Latitude: 19 07.275 N
Longitude: 108 50.206 W

Conditions:

It's another starlit night with a few clouds along the horizon. It's 78 degrees and 62% humidity. The wind is blowing about 10 knots and the ocean swells are about six feet, very broad and 12 -14 minutes apart. It's a perfect evening, although a little more wind would be nice. I'm sitting in the upper saloon with both of the cabin doors and skylight open. I am technically on watch, but Russ is up with me for awhile. We are currently motoring and charging our batteries. In an hour, we'll turn off the motor, and set the sails for the evening ride, then Russ will retire. Garyn is sleeping and will take over at 2:00 a.m.

Just as the sun went down on Friday night, a boobie and two frigate birds started circling the boat looking for a place to roost. We pulled out the laser pen and were successful for a while shining it at them and preventing them from landing. However, the booby wasn't as stupid as it looked and eventually figured out that if he landed and tucked his head down and didn't look at the laser he would be alright. So he sat on the mast, right on the windex spinning around all night. Garyn was able to keep the frigates off the mizzen for a while, but eventually one of them wised up, landed and didn't seem to care about the red laser anymore. Both birds got a free dry ride all night and rewarded us with poop all over the decks. Garyn got a tired arm and a stiff neck.


It was my night off, so I got to sleep through Friday night. Garyn had the 9-2:00 a.m. watch and Russ had the 2:00-7:00 a.m. watch. The boat had a little wind, and I knew we were happily moving forward under main, mizzen, and jib. At some point in my dreams. I thought I heard voices during Russ's watch, and thought it was Garyn and Russ. Turns out I was hearing voices, but not what I thought.

Russ was on watch and about 4:00 a.m. noticed an AIS (automated information system) target on our navigation screen. We receive AIS transmissions from most commercial ships and many private vessels that alerts us of their course and direction. It logs their marine identifier and displays for us pertinent information such as their name, vessel size, speed, home port, destination, compass heading and bearing, It was a large Japanese tanker coming towards us at 20 nautical miles and hour and our paths were due to intersect within 500 yards. Way to close for comfort. Captain Russ called the tanker on the radio and had a conversation with their bridge. He told them who he was, name of our vessel, position and course, and asked if the tanker could see us? The responder on the bridge must have put Russ on standby and then reported that he did see us….Russ wasn't sure if it was by radar or visual and the radio operator had limited English. The radio operator reported, "I see you, stand your course. I change course." With that, Russ could see that the course bearing for the tanker changed 10 degrees, and they intersected our path several miles away, well in front of us.


When I finally got up in the morning, Garyn and Russ were flying our new gennaker and with 10 knots of consistent 10 knot wind on our beam, we were moving at 4.5 knots! So far that's the record speed for this windless trip. If we hadn't had the gennaker we would have only been moving about 2-3 knots. Most of the morning we had a great wind, then it died out and was wimpy-puffy most of the afternoon. The barometric pressure has been rising from 1012 yesterday, to 1017 this morning and 1018 this afternoon.


Other than our friends the birds, we didn't really see any other wildlife today, not even our pet gecko. After a few chores, we spent the day trying to catch the wind, reading, listening to the audio book, The Fountain Head, and music. Garyn practiced guitar and later we had a late afternoon game of dominoes while pork chops and broccoli au Gratin baked in the oven. We saw another sailboat on the horizon as the sun was descending. We think it was our friend on Aquila, but didn't get any response from any vessel when we hailed them on the VHF on channels 16 and 22. We subscribe to YOTREPS Summary so that we can see the positions of all of the other sailboats on the puddle jump. We have a little YOTREPS reporter program that plots all of the data on a map for us. The only problem is that the boats are all identified by their marine call signs which are not easily recognizable. Ours is WDD8707. So it takes awhile for us to decipher who is who and their position relative to us.


There are two puddle jump nets that we try to listen to. We have not been very successful hearing the evening net and have had more luck in the morning. Since we don't want to run down our batteries, if we don't hear something within the first five minutes, we turn off the radio.


The highlight of our day is getting email via our single side band radio. We are basically alone, so it's nice to hear some occasional news from family and friends. Just remember to keep messages reasonably short with no attachments. The radio wave propagation in this part of the Pacific is not very good. There are only a few times during the day when we can send and receive information at a reasonable speed. 0100 and 1700 GMT. We may choose only one of those times to send and receive. Since everyone is in a different time zone and we will be changing zones, we use GMT as our standard.


As I close out this update, Russ, Garyn, the boobie on our mast and the gecko somewhere on the navigation desk are sound asleep. The stars are twinkling, the water is lapping past our sides as a gentle breeze carries us into the night.


All is well on Worrall Wind.

Marquesas Bound - Days 1-3

Passage from La Cruz, Mexico to Hiva Oa, Marquesas
******************************************************
Day 1 - Wednesday - April 7, 2010
UTC/GMT: 0000 UTC, 12:00 a.m.
Latitude: 20 33.60 N
Longitude: 105 45.63 W
Conditions:
We awoke this morning to a clear sky and a sense of high anticipation. During morning coffee, we busied ourselves with breakfast, listening to the Banderas Bay Cruiser's net and saying our goodbyes, closing hatches, checking weather, taking down and washing all of the mosquito nets from ports and hatches, drying and stowing them away until we reach land again. Our sail rigger arrived around 10:30 to show us how to reef the cutter into a storm sail and how to rig and fly the gennaker.
We cast off from our slip around 11:30 and headed over to the fuel dock where we topped off our fuel tanks with 84 gallons of diesel. In case you're interested, the cost of diesel fuel today was 37.70 pesos per gallon (about $3.02 per gallon).
Our tank holds enough for us to motor 1/3 of the way to Tahiti if we need to.
Our hope of course is to sail most of the way. We cast off from land at 12:12 p.m., motored out of the harbor steering a course of 240 into calm seas and a a very light breeze. We pulled up and stowed all of the bumpers off the stern of the boat and ate lunch waiting for a breeze before raising the sails. By 1:30 the wind had picked up to about 11 knots. We cut the motor, hoisted the main, the mizzen, the jib, and the cutter. The breeze was coming primarily from 35 degrees north, north west and was inconsistent, rising from 11 to 4 knots. Russ and Garyn adjusted the Hydrovane so that the auto helm could free us to attend to other things.
I made soda water with our new soda stream machine and enjoyed an ice cold glass of sparkling water with lime. This was the machine that Garyn brought down by plane, Don from Freezing Rain drove the CO2 cartridges down from Washington to Mexico because they cannot come by air. We wanted soda, but not the bottles or cans so this is an ideal solution for us. However, we thought after all the strategic transportation of the various components, we were to be defeated when we realized there had been no bottle caps shipped with the machine. Fortunately, I was able to secure 1 bottle cap (these are custom designed 1 ¼" and deep), from a fellow cruiser who heard my plea over the cruisers' net. He promised to leave me one of his cap at the La Cruz Harbor Master's office. He was packing up and leaving Mexico for the states in just a few hours. He said it was no trivial matter, but an emergency not to have a cap for our fizzy bottle. He's my hero!
Garyn practiced his guitar, Russ worked on navigation and practicing with his sextant. We worked on attaching knives, lights, and whistles to our flotation devices while keeping watch and adjusting sails and course to the variable winds. The sea swells are about 2-3 feet at a comfortable interval. My plan is to try and post a blog about the same time every day just before sunset. We are coming up now on 5:30 and it's time for me to cook some dinner. Garyn and Russ are going to toss over the water generator and we will see how much it slows us down and how many amps it produces.
I'm holding first watch tonight from 9:00-2:00 a.m. Russ says he will probably stay up with me as he won't be able to sleep the first night. Garyn will come on at 1:00 until 7:00. Each day we will rotate the watches. Every third night, one person will get a full night's rest (this should be Russ's full night of rest). Six hour watches seem a little long to me, but this is what we are going to try and start with.
All is well on Worrall Wind.
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Day 2 - Thursday - April 8, 2010
UTC/GMT: 0714 Friday (4/8) 1:14 a.m.
Latitude: 19 44.631 N
Longitude: 107 06 283 W
Conditions:
It's very dark. Stars twinkle between broken clouds. The wind is shifting around from 60 to 180 degrees off our starboard side, north west to north east at only 3-5 knots. It is inconsistent, but at least we have some. Earlier today we had no winds to speak of. The sea was glassy except for an 8-9 foot swell every 10-11 seconds. Worrall Wind gently rose and fell in the most beautiful clear cobalt blue seas going nowhere fast.
Although we have traveled (tacked over 200 miles, we are only 110 miles out from Mexico, generally heading west, southwest. We are trying to "west" as much as possible hoping to pick up the 1016 barometric pressure gradient as it makes its way south. This pressure gradient will give us a better sail with fewer clouds and percipitation. Our barometric pressure right now is 1010 and rising.
We had a cloudy sunrise this morning after a gentle night at sea. Neither my watch nor Garyn's was remarkable other than we saw a cruise ship on my watch, heading out of Puerto Vallarta and turning north towards Cabo San Lucas and a large tanker that crossed behind me about 7 miles also heading north. On Garyn's watch he picked up the mast lights of another sailboat. Later in the morning we made contact with the boat. It is Mike, single handed, on Aquila, making the jump. At one point our boats were only 50 feet from one another and Mike caught a breeze and pulled ahead as we were virtually drifting in circles trying to catch some breeze.
Garyn and Russ raised the gennaker (an asymetricalcruising spinnaker) today for the first time. It's a bright red star pattern on a white background and is extremely light weight. It is intended to work well in light winds. Our course this morning was too close to the little wind that we had and we had beam swells and the wind spilled out of the sail as we rolled with the swell.
It was like watching a big lung exhale and inhale…quite mesmerizing, but we were too close to the wind with no more speed than we were getting with our jib, so we took it down and decided to turn on the motor a bit, run the water maker and recharge our batteries after the morning net and sail mail transmission on our single side band gobbled up the amps.
We left Mike behind us, but I am sure he will catch up with us as his boat is lighter weight and not the heavy slug we are. (Our water line that we raised 4 inches last summer is slightly under the water now.) I hope that once we are more comfortable flying the gennaker we can take better advantage of the light winds and actually make good forward progress when we get into the trades and the wind is off our beam and stern quarter.
We saw lots of sea life today. Early in the morning, we saw a pod of dolphins. Mola mola, a small ray, and a frolicking seal. Later we noticed what looked like marine helmets shining on top of the water. We sailed by a half dozen sea turtles gentle floating on top of the waves seemingly confident that we would dodge around them…and we did.
When we scraped our plates overboard, boobies appeared from nowhere within minutes. Fortunately, none have tried to roost and poop on the boat. Just as the sun went down, there was a little sparrow sitting on our porta bote, happy to have a dry place to land so far out from land. With our motor on and some forward movement, flying fish scattered out from our bow like starbursts in front of us. I saw a couple of big splashes, but not sure what made them.
We enjoyed salami and cheese on the last of the French bread from Puerto Vallarta. For dinner I fixed tomato and avocado stuffed with tuna salad. Russ and I shared the glass of chilled white wine so that we could get the bottle out of the fridge. We are trying to drink a lot of liquid every day. Garyn drinks primarily water. Russ likes lemonade and berry drinks. I love the sparkling water and of course the morning coffee.
Tonight Garyn gets the full night rest. Russ had the 9:00-1:00 a.m. watch, and I have the 2:00 to dawn watch. It is currently 4:00 a.m. in the morning and time for me to make some notations in the log. We are currently getting a nice steady breeze of about 8 knots so we are making some progress.
All is well on Worrall Wind.
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Day 3 - Friday - April 9, 2010
UTC/GMT: 0430 4/9/20 7\30 p.m.
Latitude: 19 51.463 N
Longitude: 107 33.376 W
Conditions:
It is late in the day and the sun is making its descent as we motor directly into it. The winds have been extremely low and we have made paltry forward progress since 12:00 a.m. this morning.of only 45 nautical miles (averaging less than 2 knots an hour). The sea turtles were swimming faster. The current was actually pushing us backwards. It's been overcast so our solar panels and water generator were not producing enough amps, so at 6:00 this evening we turned on the motor to charge the batteries and to make a little forward progress before the sun goes down. The wind sometimes comes up at night and sometimes it doesn't. We have gentle swells, hardly any wind, and at this report the westward sky is cloudy (should make a terrific sunset) and the northern sky is clear of clouds.
I was on watch from 1:30 to 8:00 a.m. this morning. As we go further west, the sun didn't rise until almost 8:00. It was pitch black at 7:00 a.m. Around 7:00 a.m. I noticed on our navigation screen that a huge tanker was comingin our direction traveling at 12 knots and would pass behind us as close as 1 mile within 1 hour and 45 minutes. I couldn't see the tanker in the dark. The wind had shifted around from the South east running us north. I needed to gybe the boat to go south, but that would have put me in the path of the tanker if the wind picked up. I just decided to let us drift back in the direction we came until I got a visual on the tanker. By the time Russ and Garyn got up, we made the decision to gybe and parallel the tanker's course. It passed along our side within 2 miles. On the San Francisco Bay 2 miles is nothing, but in this huge ocean, 2 miles seems right in your face!
Another tanker, the Hanjin of San Francisco passed us on the starboard side. We decided we must be in the north bound shipping lane - of course nothing is marked on our charts. Due to the morning excitement and a pot of watch coffee, I was still wide awake, so I decided to make breakfast for everyone. We had an oven omelet stuffed with bacon, cheese, tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms and zucchini.
Garyn and I worked in the galley airing out fruits and vegetables. The air temp has been in the mid 70's. The water temperature is 80 degrees. Consequently the hold is not a good place for the vegetables, too warm and moist. We dried out the moist veggies and hung everything in net bags all through the lower saloon on the hand rails and opened the ports. Fruit and veggies are much happier.
Wild life today has been limited to leaping dolphins, swooping boobies, and a stow away gecko that is living on the nav desk in the fuse panel. We're worried he won't find any no-seeums or mosquitoes to eat since we have left land. Hopefully he survives the trip. Maybe we can train him to eat salami and hot dogs.
We spent the day reading, listening to music and hand steering in the light wind trying to capture every little puff of wind. We are listening to the Fountain Head by Ayn Rand. The sea and wind was calm enough this evening to pull out the bar-b-que and grill some hamburgers and chilies stuffed with swiss cheese. There's got to be an upside to the lazy sail. Our grib files indicate that we are in a no wind zone and that in a day or two we should have a more consistent wind. We are looking forward to swifter forward progress.
Garyn and I just photographed the setting sun. Beautiful, but no green flash tonight. Our days are book ended by sunrises and sunsets.
All is well on Worrall Wind.

So Long Puerta Vallarta & Mexico

It's just a matter of a good weather window now before we take off.   The weather disturbances in California are sending giant waves south.   It looks like sometime midweek, April 7-9, before we take off.  All of the problems with auto pilot, cutter, and gennaker are resolved.  We have officially signed out of Mexico with Port Captain and are just waiting.

While waiting, we finished all of the projects and are now enjoing ourselves with a self-guided jungle excursion, a visit to Jarretaderas and a rodeo, and once again enjoying the visual sites and sounds of Puerta Vallarta on Easter Sunday.  Here's a little photo album (some by Garyn)  of our last days in Puerta Vallarta.


JUNGLE TOUR

                                                                           Raptors

 

and Reptiles

Jarretederas Rodeo and Enesto's Good Grub

The best part of every rodeo for me are the clowns.

After a late afternoon rodeo, we walked through the Mexican village of Jarretaderas, marveling at the electrical spaghetti and enjoying the best Tortilla Soup in Mexico, ribs, and garlic butter shrimp at Ernesto's Good Grub.

On Easter Sunday, we decided to go into downtown Puerta Vallarta where the tourists, artists, and vendors came together to enjoy a great afternnoon:

Permanent Bronize Sculputres:

Living Artist Posers

Sand Sculptures

Rock Balancers

Artist Vendors

Musicians on the river walk

That's it for now.  We are off to do the fresh produce, egg, and meat provisioning.  Play time is over.

Still have the bowlines on!

Two out of three last minute problems are resolved, but we are still waiting on our gennaker that is trying to get an airplane ride from Mexico City to Puerta Vallarta.  Everyday it's been Manana.  If it doesn't come today, it most likely will not get here until next week.  The Easter weekend started Wednesday and reaches its peak on Sunday here in Mexico.  The majority of Mexicans are on holiday. We are hoping now for an early next week take off.

1)  Thanks to the generous offer of friends, we are using a new auto pilot that was going to live in a box unless the other two they had on board failed.  We returned the new #@! autopilot and will have yet another new one sent to the states where we will pick it up and bring it back to Tahiti when we return from Abby and Neal's wedding in July.

2) Our cutter sail has been returned with storm sail reef points sewn in.

Garyn is here and we are accomplishing all the many little projects that would have kept us busy the first few days of the voyage.  All of us are getting anxious to leave.

Manana

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