Day 1 - April 7th, 2011 – We left Marina Nuevo Vallarta today at 1 pm. Because the La Cruz Port Captain doesn’t have the authority to check boats out of the country, we had to do our international check out with the Nuevo Vallarta Port Captain. We had been in a slip at the Nuevo Vallarta Marina for a couple of days to do the check out, wait for weather and to take advantage of the shore side opportunities to eat and drink.
My Passport 40, Freyja, is being left behind in her slip. I’m crewing for my friend Emil on his 2007 Catalina 42, Shanti.
As we left, Shanti was a jumble of gear and groceries below decks. We sailed until around 6pm then, still in the Bay, started motoring as the wind dropped to 3 or 4 knots. After 2 or 3 hours the wind picked up to 14 or so, and we were able to sail on a broad reach in very mild seas.
After scrambled eggs for all, we’re reading, napping, and settling into, or at least trying to invent, our routines. During the night Dominique had to alter course to avoid a ship that appeared to be getting too close. There was a nice waxing moon of the small crescent size, which set maybe around midnight or two am. Fortuitously, our timing is good in relation to the moon, which will be waxing for most of our trip. The stars were shining but some mild haze or sea moisture in the atmosphere turned down the radiance of the display. The satphone weather download and email capabilities are new to the boat, so we need to get to work figuring out how to use them, especially as we don’t have HF radio on board.
We haven’t started fishing, yet, as we’re still getting used to being at sea, getting the boat organized, and maybe most importantly, we haven’t left the cooler green murky waters of the bay and reached the warmer clear blue fishing waters.
While still in cellphone range, I mentioned the movie V for Vendetta, and the speech V makes when he first meets Evey, to Dominique, who downloaded it. Aren’t smart cell phones cool!
The little mileage log wheel thingy says we have made 92 miles in 24 hours, but the GPS says we made 138 miles in our first 24 hours. The log wheel speedometer seems to read maybe 40% lower than the GPS speedometer, around, for instance, 4.5 to 6.5. Note that the Data Entry stuff at the end of each day’s journal is done the next day at 1pm. The daily journal entries stop at midnight, usually.
Data entry after 24 hours, ending the April 7th to April 8th, 1pm to 1pm, 24 hour data period:
24 hour Mileage: 138 miles
Wind Speed: 17 knots
Boat Speed at time of log entry: 7 knots
Sail Plan: 100% main, 100% genoa
Wave Height/State: 2 foot wind waves, 1 foot swell
Course: 230 magnetic, 235 GPS
Barometer: 995
Temp: 78 degrees F.
Humidity: 82%
My Handheld GPS distance to waypoint: 1377
Location: 19.28.611, 107.21.082
Day 2 - April 8, Friday
On a dark squid lure I caught a bill fish on the 20 fathom long handline that my friend Geoff in Hawaii sent to me for this trip. It was smallish, maybe 50 pounds, 5 feet long maybe, but way too much meat for us and our tiny refrigerator. We let it go – it was just hooked in the lip and looked frisky as it swam off, and we hope it lives. It was too pretty to kill, not to mention that both the other crew members, one a Buddhist and the other a vegetarian, were staring at me as the decision was made. I think tuna, wahoo, dorado, etc., look more like food than a billfish does. Fishing is a bit indiscriminate in its catching, a problem which plagues the commercial industry, too. You drag your hooks or nets and who knows what you’ll catch.
We had nice sailing the day of the 8th, with a pretty steady 20 knots of true wind on the beam and Shanti galloping along at close to 8 knots for most of the day. The seas were simple, not complex, just well organized wind waves. Our motion was really reasonable. A brand new sun shower bag that Emil had laying on the foredeck was washed overboard by one particularly bold wave that came aboard. There were 4 or 5 boats in PV that didn’t leave when we did, as the weather routers were telling them to wait until the weekend or Monday for the wind to build. So far, we’ve been getting the wind we figured we’d get and are happy about our decision to leave on Thursday. I’m lying in bed blogging, and seeing on my hand held GPS that we are still averaging just over 7 knots.
Something happened today, though, that I have never read about in other sailing blogs. One or more of the beautiful birds soaring around Shanti, didn’t see which one so can’t name it, shit on the headsail and then a little later shit on the mainsail. Each time, as soon as he noticed it, Emil jumped right up with righteous indignation and scrubbed the impact zones with 409 or something and a long handled brush, but there is still a little brownish color left where the poop bombs impacted. I wonder why other bloggers have never reported birds pooping on their boats.
Partway through the day we noticed that the steering system was making some loudish squeaky, sharp snap, crackly noises. Under both the full 150% headsail and the full main the boat was out of balance with some serious weather helm and was thus really working the steering system hard. We threw a reef into the main and sprayed WD40 all over the upper rudder bearing, which is where the noise was coming from. The squeaks went away and after we reefed the helm got a lot lighter. We then read the manual concerning the steering. It turned out that it warned not to use WD40 or oil for lubricating the rudder post bearings, but to just use water.
I made chicken fajitas for dinner. Before we left we purchased 400 nice harina tortillas from the little tortilla maker across the street from Philo’s in La Cruz, and they sure are yummy.
Data entry for Day 2, ending the April 8, 1pm to 1pm, 24 hour data period:
24 hour Mileage towards waypoint: (1377 - 1215) = 162 miles
Wind Speed: 17 knots (True)
Boat Speed at time of log entry: 7 knots
Sail Plan: 100% main, 100% genoa
Wave Height/State: 2 foot wind waves, 6 foot swell long period
Sky/Clouds: Clear, sunny
Course: 247 magnetic, 224 GPS
Barometer: 1000
Temp: 75 degrees F.
Humidity: 88%
My Handheld GPS distance to waypoint/Hiva Oa: 1215 and 2431
Location: 17.59.000, 109.39
Day 3 - April 9, Saturday
Well, day three started off with a snap – the snap of a piece of 10 pound test leader. I had the drag line Geoff made for me in the water, pulling a silver blue pink white metal head squid type of thing, going about 7 knots. The leader is tied to the same deck cleat that the drag line is tied to, and then is tied to the far end of the rubber snubber shock absorber that is an integral part of the line. When the fish hits the snubber stretches and the leader breaks with a very audible snap as a sort of fish on alarm. I pulled in a nice little tuna weighing about 10 pounds, just right for a couple of days of fine fabulous fresh fish feasting. The raw bits of sashimi I ate as I cleaned and dressed it were sweet and fresh. Every time you land a fish on a sailboat you get a bloody mess. The fish is vibrating and shaking and fighting and blood is flipped and sprayed and squirted everywhere. The fastidious ones always get cranky about this time, even with the bounty of the sea at hand….. Another side note – we have lots of bananas on board so have disproved the old superstition about bananas being a jinx on fish catching. The drag line is nice as you don’t have to stop the boat or slow down. You just haul the fish in. With a pole the fish runs, your line goes out, you reel it back in, you hope your line is heavy enough test, you have to slow down as the speed of the boat helps the fish fight the pole and reel. In short, with a pole it is an entire fire drill. The drag line is 200 pound test with 75 pound leader. I do want the leader to break off if I hook a fish bigger than 50 or 60 pounds, rather than trying to bring what is really too much fish to hand.
Traditionally day to day data is collected at each day’s noon, for the old fashioned noon sun sight, but we left the dock at 1 pm and have GPS so are sticking with 1 pm as our 24 hour mark. We’ll have to switch time zones on our ship’s clock a couple of times so that sunrise and sunset occur at reasonable hours as we sail west. For radio schedules and logging data sailboaters have to keep two clocks, one on local time and one on zulu, or else do the correction in their heads, keeping track of the time zones they are passing through.
The wind is varying from just ahead of the beam to just abaft of it. It’s pretty steady, changing from what looks like, based on the wave shapes, around between 14 knots to 20 or so. We can’t tell its speed for sure as the main wind instrument aboard is reading 30 to 40 and the little Radio Shack weather station is apparently and logically reading apparent but a number that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Emil says his instruments have been out of calibration for quite some time. Whatever speed the wind is really blowing, it is moving us along at around 6 to 7 knots very steadily and we are really glad we left PV when we did instead of waiting with the other boats for a weather guru to bless the departure. Our own reading of the weather data on the internet before leaving convinced us that we would have enough wind to make good speed. Making our own decisions based on our own efforts researching and analyzing the raw data paid off. The University of Hawaii has a great weather website, and there are a bunch of other including both government and private ones. Also, we have pictures of the sea state at different Beaufort scale readings, which helps determine the wind speed, too.
It was a little hard to sleep last night, as the boat was bouncing around a little, especially during the time we were making 8 knots……. We’ve got the main reefed once and the 150% headsail completely unfurled. We are doing three hour watches, but a little loosely – sometimes the guy on watch doesn’t wake you up right away for your turn if he is feeling good. 9 to midnight, midnight to 3, 3 to 6 and usually somebody is up by 6 to make coffee and take over.
We haven’t run the engine for a couple of days, as the two 160 watt solar panels kick butt in this clear blue sunny weather. They’ve been feeding the always on and hungry autopilot, refrigeration, and Raymarine C-80 chart plotter, plus supporting our use of the water maker, personal computers, and nav and reading lights. The batteries are still at 100% at sundown.
Data entry for day 3, ending the April 9 to April 10, 1pm to 1pm, 24 hour period:
24 hour Mileage towards waypoint: (1215 - 1052) = 163 miles
Wind Speed: 15 knots (True)
Boat Speed at time of log entry: 6.5 knots
Sail Plan: one reef in the main, 100% genoa
Wave Height/State: 2 foot wind waves, 8 foot swell long period
Sky/Clouds: Cloudy, partial sun
Course: 232 magnetic, 244 GPS
Barometer: 1019 (from Emil’s digital Radio Shack deck unit)
Temp: 78 degrees F.
Humidity: 80%
My Handheld GPS distance to waypoint/Hiva Oa: 1052 and 2231
Location: 16.22.703 N., 111.57.258 W.
Day 4 - April 10th, Sunday
This morning the AGM batteries were down to almost 50%, the bottom allowable limit below which Emil says AGM’s suffer some physical degradation. I don’t know about AGMs as Freyja has traditional golf cart batteries, 8 T-105s. The cloud cover yesterday reduced the solar panels ability to charge the batteries. It is a little brighter today so we’ll see if we can stay charged with the panels or will have to run the engine to get them charged enough to make it through the night. The two panels mounted over the bimini are each 160 watts. Three would be better for these cloudy days. They sure do have big foot prints, though, but you don’t notice their size when they are up out of the way and out of sight over the bimini. I question whether a wind generator would be contributing much on this downwind sail, as the apparent wind is only 8 to 12 knots most of the time. A towed water generator would generate power as long as we were moving along at over whatever it is, 4 or 5 knots, but might interfere with fishing, either by tangling the fishing line when you have a fish on or by acting sort of like those deer whistles superstitious country guys put on their pick up trucks. Maybe a towed generator would be easy enough to pull out of the water when hunting and gathering food, and to throw back in for making electricity. We made 162 miles two days ago, and 163 as of our 1 pm fix today.
Our meal plan went out the window on the first day. We are choosing our next meals based on what is spoiling the fastest, rather than on what we might prefer to eat. The avocados, as hard as rocks when we bought them, really didn’t last and got ripe all at once, so they are a big menu item. The pineapples are also all ripe. I made pan seared blackened sashimi blocks from the tuna we caught yesterday – there’s a very tasty, delicate sweet flavor from the fresh tuna. We are kicking ourselves for not working harder to find wasabi. We have none. The Japanese restaurant upstairs in Paradise Village Mall was willing to order a pound or two of it for us, but we didn’t think to ask them in time to make it work logistically. They receive their orders once or twice a week, so plan ahead.
The boat is surfing on the 8’ swells, which kicks up the speed. They aren’t quite directly behind us enough, though, to avoid the stern getting tossed around a bit, which makes for some corkscrewing and throws us around a bit. The sea state is not at all radical or big, the wind is only blowing maybe 15 to 18 knots, there aren’t any big swells or confused seas coming from somewhere else, but the boat is rocking and rolling enough that you always have to hang on especially during the big dips. This Catalina 42 Mk II I’m on could use a few more handholds and would be difficult for a short person as the reaches between hand holds are far apart and high up. Both the salon and the cockpit are big enough that handholds aren’t always conveniently at hand. We’ve got 8’ long period swells and 2’ wind waves both coming from the same direction. Emil and Dominique have both been suffering off and on from mild queasiness. Sitting at the nav station typing, I’m looking first down in the water right next to the boat and then seconds later well up into the sky through the cabin porthole.
Another thing that sailing bloggers don’t seem to talk about, besides birds pooping on the boat, is dozing off on night watch. The long distance, around the world, single handers usually claim they only sleep for 20 minutes at a time or some such. I notice that during the day we, on Shanti, all sit in the cockpit facing backwards and sometimes go for quite a while without looking forwards. We do have our shields up, though – both radar and AIS guard zones and alarms are set. I wonder how many cruisers do doze off on night watch. I do want to reassure our insurance guy that we certainly don’t doze off, we’ve just talked about it.
We are running the engine now to charge the batteries back up. They only got to 70% by the end of daylight today, as it was another cloudy day, with a few drops of rain! This afternoon we had to roll up some of the headsail as the wind shifted and blew about 25 or so for a while. We’ll keep the headsail partially rolled up tonight. We also had to steer upwind a bit more as the wind clocked on us a bit and with the following seas the boat was wallowing a bit too much and allowing the wind to backfill the headsail. This might be an issue we’ll have to deal with, as we need to make our southing, too, so that we don’t get too far west above the Marquesas and have to beat upwind to get there if the SE trades have more S in them. We want to cross the equator well before 130 degrees west. The sail plan is constantly changing not just because of the wind but to help control the boat in the wind waves and swells. By constantly, I mean a couple or 4 times a day…. maybe 5 or 6.
Data entry for day 4 (covering data from 1 pm on April 10th to 1 pm on April 11th):
24 hour Mileage towards waypoint: (1052 - 911) = 141 miles
Wind Speed: 14 knots (True)
Boat Speed at time of log entry: 6.5 knots
Sail Plan: 100% main, 100% genoa
Wave Height/State: 2 foot wind waves, 8 foot swell long period
Sky/Clouds: Cloudy, partial sun
Course: 235 magnetic (Ship’s Compass)
Barometer: 1018
Temp: 83 degrees F.
Humidity: 75%
My Handheld GPS distance to waypoint/Hiva Oa: 910 and 2,093
Location: 15.09.929, 114.04.285 (at 1:01)
Day 5 - April 11th, Monday
We had a big party at the mast this morning. Emil had to install a bracket on the mast to be used to hold one end of the whisker pole, which holds out the genoa in light downwind air. He drilled four holes and tried to screw in the screws. The mast metal was too hard to turn the sheet metal screws and drive them in. He made the hole bigger. No joy, so bigger still. Each time he started turning the screws, he had to brace himself, and Dominique and I had to grab his body and brace him on the pitching, rocking and rolling deck. Emil would lean into his work, grunting and talking to the screw – oh, yeah, come on baby, oh, yes, yes, oh oh, with me and Dominique wrapped all around him bracing him….. It was pretty damn funny, really. Finally the last screw was in and the bracket secured. Too bad we didn’t have a something to tap threads into the holes or a pop rivet gun.
The wind was down last night to 10 or 12 true, so, of course, the boat slowed down a bit and we had our slowest full 24 hour passage so far on the trip, a mere 141 miles towards our waypoint. It was fluky and kept changing direction, too, so we had to steer more west than was advantageous for hitting our waypoint. We don’t want to hit the Zone (aka the InterTropical Convergence Zone) too far west, past say 128 at the most, as then there is a risk of having to be close hauled to make Hiva Oa. I didn’t sign up for beating upwind on this trip!
Last night was overcast, we couldn’t see much of the moon or stars. It was overcast today, too. Shanti made water today with its Schenker 8 gallon per hour water maker. It sure is nice to have an abundant amount of fresh water available, though it leads to bad habits, like letting the faucet run a bit….. A pod of 5 or 6 dolphins came by this afternoon and played around in the bow wave. Dominique took movies and photos and was pretty excited to have them playing by our boat.
We haven’t been fishing, as we still have some of the tuna we caught a couple of days ago. The wind continues to be lighter and from an awkward direction forcing us too much west. Soon we may tack, and go straight south for 100 miles or so, to get our good angle towards our waypoint back.
The headsail is rolled in because in this light air it flogs too much in the waves and swells. There isn’t enough wind to keep it filled properly. I suppose we should rig the whisker pole but after catching the fish we have had enough excitement for a while. Never having rigged the home made pole before on this boat, there is a certain element of discovery to the upcoming procedure. Also, we wonder whether this homemade pole that Emil bought off another boat in Barra de Navidad is heavy duty enough for Shanti. Note that the Sail Plan in the Data Entry forms is sometimes different than what is said in these paragraphs, as they are written at different times. The Data Entry information is whatever is current at the moment I’m making the entry.
Data entry for day 5 (covering data from 1 pm on April 11th to 1 pm on April 12th):
24 hour Mileage towards waypoint: (911 - 771) = 140 miles
Wind Speed: 10 knots (True)
Boat Speed at time of log entry (SOG): 5 knots
Sail Plan: 100% main, 70% genoa
Wave Height/State: 1 foot wind waves, 5 foot swell long period
Sky/Clouds: Cloudy, bright
Course/Bearing to Waypoint 6N, 126W) 230 magnetic, 223
Barometer: 1017
Temp: 76 degrees F.
Humidity: 79%
My Handheld GPS distance to waypoint/Hiva Oa: 771 and 1955
Location: 13.49.587, 116.02.936
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