Happy Holidays

December 26, 2011


Wishing all of our friends and family joy, light, health,  and happiness now and into the New Year.  
We just spent a wonderful three days in Sierraville at the Monico Homestead.  The great surprise was a cute little companion for Mom and Dad.  Abby and Neal gave them a sweet little dog, Peanut or Babe or Noel or....... Name has not yet stuck.


Here are a few photos of our time.

What fun we had with the dog, mechanical cat, IPads, and just visiting with one another.

Back to Sacramento Via Chicago, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles

November 29, 2011 - With heavy hearts, leaving our son and daughter-in-law after a wonderful visit, it was time to travel west.  We left Vermont after several hours of delay due to high winds at O'Hare in Chicago.  When we finally arrived in Chicago, we missed our connection and our flight was rescheduled 24 hours later.  So we were stranded without luggage (hats, gloves, jackets, pajamas, toothbrushes, etc.) in the windy city.  Through the airline, we were able to get reasonably priced accommodations for the night.

Serendipity

The following day, we made good use of our time. It was a crisp clear day in Chicago, and we enjoyed a day of sight seeing and a lunch with my cousin Mike who works in the city.  This was an unexpected and welcome pleasure.  

We departed Chicago in a small jet and headed for Las Vegas late in the day.  Now the winds were in Las Vegas!  When we touched down after being buffeted about in howling 50 miles an hour winds, the passengers broke into a relieved spontaneous applause and bolted from the plane.   Miraculously, we were reunited with our luggage, secured our rental car,  and navigated our way with our iPad to Abby and Neal's home.  We love our new iPad!

Las Vegas - November 30-December 7

What a delight to be reunited with our daughter, son-in-law, and grand pet Noodles. Abby and Neal both had to work the Thursday after we arrived, so we were on our own to rest up and do some touring.  We went to the Atomic museum and learned about the the nuclear testing in Nevada.  It was well done and very interesting.

Spring Preserve Museum

On Friday, Abby had the day off.  Mother and daughter luxuriated with a a pedicure and manicure.  Later in the day, Russ, Abby, and I toured the Spring Preserve in Las Vegas.  When Neal came home, we had some light snacks, and headed of to see Cirque de Soleil, Ka!  This was our Christmas present from the kids.  It was an incredible show.  We were left scratching our heads and marveling at the engineering of the sets and incredible flexibility of the humans.  We capped the evening off with dinner at the MGM Grand.

Saturday was a ski day for Neal, Russ, and Abby.  Neal is on the National Ski Patrol at Mt Charleston about 40 minutes from their home.  Elevation is about 8500 feet and there was fresh snow.  So it was a great day for all of them.  

Sunday, the five of us, including Noodles, set off for the Valley of Fire, and some short hikes through the sandstone formations.  Noodles with her scarf and hiking boots, looked very cute prancing through the sand and climbing up the rocks.  This was a first for Abby and Neal too, so it was especially fun discovering something new together.

Monday was back to work for Abby and Neal.  Russ and I caught up on laundry, reading, and working our photos.  Originally, we had planned on taking a flight tour of the Grand Canyon, but because of weather the Monday flights had been cancelled.

Grand Canyon - December 6
Tuesday morning, we boarded a touring Cessna to fly to the Grand Canyon.  The scenery from the air was gorgeous. The wind sock hung limply, the sky was blue, and the desert looked as if it had been lightly dusted with confectioner's sugar.   It took us about an hour and half to get to the south rim.  From there, Russ and I boarded a helicopter, to get an even closer look of the Canyon. 

The Canyon was dusted with snow, accentuating the many exposed layers of sandstone and eroded gullies.  The contrast of whites, pinks, beiges, and reds was spectacular.  We had plenty of time to visit some the famous look outs for for photos.

A bird's eye view sure beats a road trip!  We had a great day.

Hello Los Angeles - December 7 - 8

We arrived in Los Angeles on Wednesday night, and awoke early Thursday morning to spend 14 hours at the Happiest Place in the World.....Disneyland of course!  It's been years since we have been to Disneyland, and we've never been at Christmas so we enjoyed the festive decorations and the changes to the park.  We also enjoyed meeting up with fellow cruiser, Lori Newell, from SV Trim.

Pirates of the Caribbean is now more reflective of the movies than visa versa.  The Haunted House was decorated as The Nightmare Before Christmas, Swiss Family Robinson House is now Tarzan's Tree House, It's a Small World was lavishly decorated for the holidays, the submarine ride now incorporated finding Nemo, Tomorrowland's Inoventions is reflective of our high tech world, and best of all was the Star Tours ride now in 3D.   That was fabulous. 

Woodland Hills - December 9

We slept in on Friday morning after our long day at Disneyland and took a leisurely drive north along the coast and over the mountains through Topanga Canyon to Woodland Hills where we spent the afternoon and evening with Teresa and Conor the Irish Setter.  Our nephew Mike was on an overseas junket with Peter Greenberg http://www.petergreenberg.com/, travel expert.  Mike frequently works as Peter's radio engineer on these trips.  He has had some amazing experiences.

We missed seeing Mike, but enjoyed being with Teresa and seeing the progress that Mike is making on his sailboat project.  Between the boat and other home projects, both Mike and Teresa are busy.  The boat is looking beautiful.  It will be too pretty to put in the water.

Long Beach - December 10

We departed late morning and made our way south once again, this time to Seal Beach.  After checking into our hotel, I spent the afternoon with Aneta Murphy.  We enjoyed visiting.  Russ and I introduced Aneta to geocaching.  We found a cache just a few feet from the hotel.  Early in the evening, we enjoyed wine and hors d'ouerves with Aneta and Peter, then dinner with Irv Howard at the Long Beach Yacht Club.  What a joy to see them and to catch up.  There have been many changes to middle grades education at the state level, some good, some not so good.  When this trio retires from the California League of Schools, I sure hope there are some great people with big feet to fill their shoes!  They do a terrific job for California's teachers and students.

Sunday, December 11-18 It's Party Time!
We arrived back home in Colfax late December 11, spent 1 night in our own bed, and headed back down to the Bay Area for some visiting.  We spent time with friend Carlene Abbors, Russ's brothers and sisters-in-law Ted and Marian, and Don and Diane, Roz's Aunt Laura, friends Wayne and Carol Martin, and new acquaintances and Nauticat Boat owners Barb and Dave Tishler.  We returned back to Colfax to have breakfast on Saturday with Roz's former colleague from California Department of Education Marsha Robinson and her friend Bill.  Saturday afternoon was spent at Wendy Stevens home in Carmichael with our former Fleet I group.  We had a great, fun-filled reunion with several friends.  Sunday, it's dinner with the McElhaney's and friends......phew!

Montreal and Winooski Thanksgiving

It's hard to believe that our visit here with our Winooski, Vermont kids is almost at an end.  We leave tomorrow for Las Vegas. It will be a bitter sweet goodbye.  Bitter because goodbyes are always sad.  Sweet because we will be going to visit our LV kids.  It is a rare occasion that the we will be able to see both of them albeit not together, on the same day.  We are scattered as the fall leaves.

During the last two weeks, we have visited the lovely city of Montreal Canada, enjoyed a cozy white Thanksgiving in Winooski, and pet sat for Misty and Balou, while Jess and Garyn traveled to Cape Code for Jessica's birthday.

Montreal - Old, New, and Lovely

We arrived in Montreal on Saturday just in time for the Christamas Parade.  Montreal grownups and children and were enthralled with Santa and snow angels.

The city was dressed up for the opening of the season.  The skycap was one of contrasts, old, new, spires, towers, and steeples.

We enjoyed the exceptionally balmy day in the low 50's, and the sunshine as we walked all around the town.

As the sun began to set, we ducked into the underground shopping malls which are simply aMAZing.  They are several stories deep and are all interconnected, one after another.

I am glad the kids knew their way around because without our GPS, we would probably still be trying to find our way out!  We spent Saturday evening in the bar at the Sheraton, sharing wine, cheese, and fruit.

On Sunday we visited the Cathedral on the hill overlooking the city and the former Olympic Stadium now used as a recreational stadium and Biodome of diversity (tropical, Vermont woodlands, marine, and subtropical environments).  It was very well done and interesting.  As we left the city. we made a quick stop at the Biosphere where sustainable environments is the focus.

The excursion to Canada was short but sweet.

Winooski - White Thanksgiving

Nature's Ice Art

Back in Winooski, the temperature kept dropping.  We put on our long underwear, took some nice walks in the crisp autumn air, and shopped for Thanksgiving.  We visited the downtown area, Winooski River area where we found a geocache.  We also found a geocache within view of Garyn and Jessica's home.  Right in their front yard...almost.

We awoke the day before Thanksgiving to a snowplow rumbling down the street.  We peeked out from our second story window to see a beautiful white blanket of snow that had silently fallen from the sky as we slept.

Jessica brined the Thanksgiving turkey overnight in a five gallon bucket which we chilled in the land cruiser (LC).  LC has taken our family on many trips, but brining a turkey was the first.

Thanksgiving was wonderful, snowy white on the outside, warm and cozy on the inside.  Garyn and Jessica worked on their tiling project in the basement family room, we watched endless football games, and stuffed our selves as all good Americans do on this day.

Garyn, turkey, and Jess - First Thanksgiving Dinner

The day after TG, Garyn and Jessica, took a short trip to Cape Cod to celebrate Jessica's birthday, and we pet sat for Balou and Misty.  We have loved every minute of being here with our family.  Now it's time to go.

Goodbye Vermont, Hello Las Vegas.

Russ and Misty working off the turkey,  Lake Champlain Causeway

All is well with the 2 Travel R's

Home to America

Fall in Burlington, Vermont

The 2 Sail R's have temporarily become the 2 Land Travel R's. We touched down in California on October 26, and have now been stateside for three plus weeks.

Week 1 - California:  We've been catching up with family and friends, buying some warm clothing, squeezing our feet into shoes, making arrangements for trips to Vermont and Las Vegas, getting a new roof, visiting doctors, dentists, oral surgeons and hair stylists, updating technology - cell phones, iPad, Mac, IPods, etc.  Russ's aching joints get a probable diagnosis from Dr. Abby,  Ross River Virus, a mosquito borne illness we believe Russ contracted in Vanuatu.  The bad news it lasts 6 months to a year.  The good news it lasts 6 months to a year, not the rest of his life.

Week 2 - Vermont: We packed our bags and flew east to be with our son and daughter-in-law for Thanksgiving.  Garyn and Jess have a darling old home in Winooski, across the river from Burlington.  We have visited Stowe, Trapp Family Lodge, Ben and Jerry's, Shelburne Farms, and of course downtown Burlington decked out with twinkling holiday lights.  Ir's wonderful being here with our kids!

Week 3 - Massachusetts:  Russ and I just returned to Vermont from a road trip to Salem and Boston Massachusetts.  It's a chilly but economical time of year to visit Boston.  There are a lot of off season deals.  We visited the Salem Witch History Museum, all of the sites on the Freedom Trail, took a tour of the Boston Inner Harbor, bus tour to Cambridge and Harvard, visited the MIT Museum of Technology, toured the USS Constitution, ate at Lemoncellos in the Italian district on the North End, picked up some chocolate covered cannoli at Mike's Pastry, and spent our last afternoon at the JFK Museum in South Boston.  We had a great time.

Week 4 - Coming up......The four of us are heading to Montreal for a few days and returning to Vermont for Thanksgiving.  We will be dog and cat sitting after Thanksgiving while Garyn and Jess, go to Cape Cod for the weekend to celebrate Jess's birthday.  Then we are off to Las Vegas to visit our daughter and son-in-law.

That's it for now.  Temperatures in Brisbane where Worrall Wind is cooling her keel is in the mid 80's.  We had some snow flurries last night here in Vermont.  All is well with the 2 Land Travel R's

Worrall Wind Update - Arrived safely in Australia!

We got in to Brisbane, but not before the storm broke.
Latitude: S 27 26.652
Longitude: E 153 06.437

Didn't want to alarm friends and family at home, but we were once again beating the clock into port, Brisbane. An unexpected front, not on our departure weather routing, pushed up from the south promising big winds and seas, moving in quickly Monday morning, October 17. We are so glad we left a day early even though it meant no wind and motoring. By day three into our journey our revised weather gribs and weather router alerted us of the high winds and waves pushing around southern Australia up the east coast. We had originally planned on a Tuesday or Wednesday arrival, but decided we couldn't afford to dink around and needed to be in the harbor by early morning.

Once we turned the motor on to leave Noumea, we never turned it off until we reached Brisbane. Lehmen (our engine), and Ray (our auto pilot) worked the entire trip to maintain at least 6-7 knots even with sails up. Keeping the motor running was one way to keep water out of the muffler and hobby horsing into the engine.

Hydie the Hydrovane rested. The new bracket we designed and installed on Hydie's rudder shaft worked well as long as we didn't jack up the rpm's over 900. It probably would have worked well with more speed, but we didn't want to push it. We had better fuel economy keeping the rpms down as well. Since we had lost some time during the two mammoth squalls with thunder and lightning (end of storms in Australia) we encountered on Saturday afternoon and night, we were running late. After the first squall we took down the mizzen and poled-out jib. After the second squall, we took down the main and decided to throttle up the engine in the morning when dawn broke with clear skies, light winds and fairly calm seas.

First we had to take Hydie's rudder off. Russ devised a slick two line pin system that allows us to unpin the rudder and pull it up without Russ having to climb down the stern ladder.

White line pulls up to release lock on rudder pin.  Blue line pulls rudder pin horizontally releasing rudder.

Once we had the rudder safely removed and stowed. We throttled up, but not too much as we didn't want to use up all of our fuel before we got Australia. As the sun was setting in the distance, we were 85 miles off the coast of Australia, we caught our first glance of land.

Land Ho!

We cruised all night in light to moderate winds which swung around from north east to South west. By 4:00 a.m. the wind picked up to 20 knots. We thought once we got into the entrance shipping channel, we would be protected by Morton Island from the winds.  Nope!

It was a bash all the way up the channel to Brisbane as the wind and wind waves were on our nose most of the way, increasing to 25 and 30 knots with 1-2 meter wind waves. By the time we made our final approach into the entrance channel with still eleven miles to go, our starboard fuel tank was reading empty, and our port fuel tank was on reserve with the needle becoming spastic and jumping back and forth from full to empty.

Starboard Fuel Tank Reads Empty

Somewhere along this leg we were going to have to dump one of our jugs of diesel into the port tank to see if the needle would stop swinging around.  We weren't really sure how much diesel we had left.

The wind was blowing 40 knots on our port beam with rolling wind waves, and it was raining. A big tanker was on our tail, and we were trying to stay on the outside edge of the channel so the tanker could overtake us and pass on our port. We were crabbing up the river 20 degrees off course towards the center of the channel and powering up the engine just so we wouldn't be blown into the channel markers on our starboard side. One came way too close for comfort.

Channel Marker.   No Red Right Returning in Pacific.  We keep Green to Starboard.

It was actually pretty nice once the tanker was on our port side as it proved to be a great wind and wave shadow for us. Two tug boats were keeping Sea Master from drifting over on us. The tanker had slowed way down, and we stayed on his starboard side for a couple of miles while we supplemented our fuel tanks, until the tanker docked.

Tanker blocks wind, waves, and gives us some respite to fill our fuel tank.

Russ adding some fuel to port tank.

By then we were in the lee of the land and could go several more miles if we had too. We tied up to the fuel dock at Rivergate Marina by 1:30. The wind in the Marina had decreased to 15 knots.

Coming in to Rivergate Marina for Check In.

The Customs and Immigration people were on the boat by 1:45. Quarantine came about 4:00. The officials were very nice and professional. It was a painless check in. We had eaten all our fresh fruit, veggies, uncooked meat, and eggs. The only thing I had to relinquish were some onions and garlic cloves. They didn't take any of my flours, spices, crackers, etc. We had cooked meat in the freezer and quarantine wasn't interested.

I had all my shells ready to show them and had bagged all of my baskets, wood, planted based products in a big black garbage bag that had been sprayed with Raid and sealed up. Again, not interested. One hears so many stories, it's hard to know what to believe when it comes to these check-ins. It's not always consistent, and I think they learn to read body language and know when someone is nervous and hiding something that should have been declared. Honesty is always the best policy then you can relax and let whatever happpens, happen.

We refueled our tanks, over $1100.00. Ouch. C'est la vie. We spent the early evening with Danny and crew on Regina and Jacob on Mewa. Oh the sea stories we all have to tell! But everyone is so tired and so happy to be in port, we begged off for bed. We hope to leave Rivergate tomorrow and make the 10 mile motor to Scarborough Marina. Tomorrow was the original date of our trip home. We didn't want to be slave to a schedule and it turned out we had to be anyway. But we are here, and I hope our sailing friends who left Noumea (particularly the ones who left after we did) are coping well with the conditions or have made it safely to port.

All is well with the 2 Sail R's on SV Worrall Wind

Worrall Wind Update - Day 5 - White Squall - Black Squall

SQUALLS!

Saturday, October 16, 2011
UTC 1500 10/16, 0100 10/17

Latitude: S 25 54.329
Longitude: E 156 04.818

Ok, so today hasn't been so uneventful. We knew it was too good to last.

We woke up this morning to cloudy skies and rain off and on. By 1:30 p.m., it was time for the Pacific Sea Farer's Net, but we had no better luck hearing anything on the HAM band than we did on our marine side band earlier in the morning. Propagation either from solar flares or cloudy skies prevented us from checking in. As we were trying to connect, we could see a band of rain coming towards us. The wind started to pick up from a mild 15 to about 28 knots. We were engulfed in a white squall. The clouds reached down to the water dumping rain and roiling the seas. All we could see was white all around us.

We had our mainsail double reefed with a preventer as the wind was on our starboard beam and rear quarter, a small poled jib on the port side, and our mizzen. One of our main concerns when we have a poled jib is to not get back winded. Since we were motor-sailing and using our auto pilot rather than our wind vane, it meant we had to disconnect the auto pilot so that we could keep the wind where we wanted it and not get it in front of the pole or back wind it. Hydie does this automatically, steering with a set wind angle. Ray (marine) just knows how to stay on our course, and pays no attention to the wind angle.

We could see lightning ahead. I counted to 15 before we heard the thunder. Another strike, this time 11. We quickly disconnected our electronic gear, stowing the sattelite phone, hand held gps, navigation dongel, backup disk drive, and notebook computer in the microwave. We stowed the Mac and navigation computer in the oven to protect them from any lightning strikes. For about an hour while the squall blew through dumping rain, we did a white knuckle hand steer. At one point as we were keeping the wind angle on our beam, we were headed in the opposite direction from our course line. The winds were spinning around, and we with them!

When the winds hand blown themselves out and we were in their vacuum, we hustled outside in our rain gear, took down the mizzen and poled in the jib. If this was going to be a squally day, we wanted to reduce sail and just motor. Russ said, he wanted to pretend to be a trawler for awhile. The winds finally spun around in the direction we expected and the sun came out an hour. After reconnecting the electronics, we could relax. Exhausted, we took turns napping in the pilot house like two cats in the sunshine. Our lack of good sleeping is starting to catch up with us.

By late afternoon, the clouds were starting to form again on the horizon. I took a quick 1/2 hour power nap before my 8:00 p.m. watch started, and Russ went down for his sleep time. Since the moon is waning and coming up later each night, I didn't expect to see it until 8:30 or so. I could see a few stars, but really miss the friendly night light. The moon finally rose behind the boat illuminating the horizon, but I didn't like what I saw when it did. Inky black cloud fingers stretched across the sky obscuring the stars.

At 9:30, the sky started to light up, but not from the moon light. The inky fingers had arced from 9 o'clock to 3 o'clock on the horizon and were closing in on Worrall Wind. Lightning was dancing across the sky from cloud to cloud. I waited for each lightning flash to see what the cloud cover looked like. The clouds were still in the distance, but the wind was starting to pick up. Maybe this would just pass over us or we could steer around them. I recorded our longitude and latitude, then disconnected all of our electronic gear once again and stowed them in the ovens.

I woke Russ up at 10:00 to see if he wanted me to try and steer around the approaching squall. It looked like if we changed course from southwest to due north, the squall might pass us by. That seemed to work for a while. The clouds and lightning were moving past our port side, but then we could see the black mass starting to wrap on our right side. It was like that black cloud in Lost engulfing us. It sucked out the moonlight and then the lightning that had been horizontally jumping from cloud to cloud came down in a jagged streak a mile or so off our starboard side. The lightning and crack of thunder were almost simultaneous. Holy sh#!!

We couldn't see a thing.  It was either pitch black or blindingly white as the lightening cracked around us.  The wind was reaching 38 knots. We decided the best thing to do now was to resume our original course with the wind right on our nose, and see if we could just plow out of this malignant ugly thing. We were glad to have the jib and mizzen down. It gave us more latitude to stay on course. The rain was fierce. It was very scary!

By 11:30 (1 and 1/2 hours later), it seemed safe enough to retrieve one of the GPS units and get a position fix, and to see how fast we were moving. With the wind, wind waves, and perhaps a current on our nose we were only making forward progress of 2 nautical miles per hour. By 12:30 the black ugly had finally passed us by. By 1:00 p.m. we were back up and running, and Russ went to bed for another couple of hours. It's now almost 3:00 a.m., and I'm ready to switch places with Russ. We are both ready for our voyage to be ending. We still have 150 miles to go! The moon is shining through a veil of clouds on our starboard side. Goodnight moon.

All is well with the 2 Sail R's on SV Worrall Wind

Worrall Wind Update - Day 4 to Oz

Friday, October 14, 2011
UTC 1400/0000 10/15/2011

Latitude: S 25 07.446
Longitude: E 158 14.846
Course over Ground 250 @ 6.0 knots (motor sailing)
Light winds, 2 meter seas
477 down, 290 miles to go

Another wonderfully uneventful day following the "yellow brick road" to Oz. The sun, clouds, stars, and moon have all made their appearances today as we head west. The swells have grown a little milder this evening with the occasional rollers moving through...no traffic, no wildlife, just miles and miles and miles of water for as far as the eye can see. We've been reading, listening to Philip Pullman's the Subtle Knife, and podcasts. Our current estimated time of arrival is Monday, October 17, early a.m.
All is well with the 2 Sail R's on SV Worrall Wind