Day 6 - April 12, Tuesday
Emil snuck his fishing pole out when I wasn’t looking. I’d been holding back, not fishing because we still have fresh tuna in the refrigerator, but developing a sense of anticipation about putting my lure back in the water. There is nothing like having your lure or bait in the water. Sure enough, he caught a little 5 pound tuna. I made him kill and clean it. He admitted it was the first time that he killed and cleaned a fish. I could see his Buddha nature struggling with it but in the end he did a great job. He didn’t eat any of the choice bits of raw sashimi meat as he cleaned, though. I think he can get into being a hunter/gatherer with a little more practice. I told him the next step will to be to raise, kill, clean and eat fresh organic chickens on his farm. He turned a little green at that idea, which made me feel better and stop thinking about how he beat me to the glory of the morning’s catch.
Shanti ran the engine early this morning as the batteries are running down under the constant loads from the auto pilot, chart plotter and refrigeration. The cloudy days just aren’t putting enough watts into the panels to bring the batteries back up. The AGMs charge up a lot more quickly than my flooded lead acid old fashioned batteries do. Two hours of engine running takes them from 50% to close to 100%, if I’m reading Emil’s gauges correctly. I’d have to run my engine for maybe 6 hours to get from 50 to 100, even with my big Balmar alternator. This is a huge plus for the AGMs. I wonder what the cost of them is, as compared to the costs of the lead acid batteries and running the boat’s charging system for 3 times or more longer.
The wind has been softer for the last 24 hours or so, we’ve slowed down to maybe 5 knots. Our 24 hour mileage figure will be down again today. Minutes after I typed this sentence, down at the nav station, I felt this thrilling little surge in Shanti, and heard the sound of water rushing past her hull. These 140 miles days are no good! Shanti does move pretty nicely in response to wind. I’m impressed with how she can hold 7 knots of speed given a 15 to 20 knot breeze. Because of Shanti’s keel and rudder design, as opposed to Freyja’s keel that runs along ¾ of the boat underwater and her skeg hung rudder the size of a barn door, Shanti feels different to steer, more sporty maybe. I suppose that as long as the autopilot holds up we won’t have to worry about steering her. We haven’t given the autopilot a cute name.
We’ve gotten into a routine of reading, looking at the ocean, napping, cooking, looking at the ocean, reading, ocean looking, snacking, napping, bird watching, ocean looking and maybe doing a bit of laundry or messing around with our stuff. Time flies by, there is no sense of boredom or confinement on the boat. The ocean is so big…… the horizon is infinite.
I had a great time on my 1 am to 4 am watch the other night dancing and jumping around to the tunes on my Zune. I worked a sweat up dancing with myself. However, at the end of my watch, when I went to charge it I realized that the charging cord is on Freyja. Ah Hah! I said when I realized that my trusty Droid X has 16 gigs of music in it and that I have the charging/USB computer cords for it so can change its music around if I feel like I need something different for sailing than what I put on it for life on the farm. My new moderately expensive Magnolia HiFi ear buds are great as they really stay in when moving around and are light, unobtrusive, have a very light small volume control right at the Y, and really have a great sound.
It is nice having Dominique on board. He is a really nice easy going guy who has some good sailing experience in his background. Plus, he is French, so is able to work on language lessons with us. Emil and I are both pulling our old French lessons out of the attic of our minds, and we both are making some progress. If only the French were sensible enough to pronounce their language exactly the way it is written……
Data entry for day 6 (covering data from 1 pm on April 10th to 1 pm on April 11th):
24 hour Mileage towards waypoint: (771 - 648) = 123 miles
Wind Speed: 131 knots (True)
Boat Speed at time of log entry: 5 knots
Sail Plan: 100% main, 70% genoa
Wave Height/State: 2 foot wind waves, 3 foot swell long period
Sky/Clouds: Cloudy, partial sun
Course/Bearing to Waypoint: 175 magnetic, 229 GPS
Barometer: 1015
Temp: 81 degrees F.
Humidity: 73%
My Handheld GPS distance to waypoint/Hiva Oa: 648 and 1833
Location: 12.41.950, 117.50.700 (at 1:15)
Day 7 - April 13, Wednesday
We had fluky wind last night, puffing up and down between not enough to really sail and just enough. Its direction meant that we couldn’t make much SW towards our waypoint and had to sail a lot more to the West. We were under mainsail alone, as the weight of the headsail in the very light winds and following seas made it just flog and snap. Our speed was down to 4 knots last night.
This morning we tacked and are headed mostly south, under 70% headsail and full main, with the wind over our port stern quarter. We’re making 5.5 to 6 knots, heading south now instead of later when we arrive at 126 or 128 degrees west, which lets us keep our weather gauge and options for crossing the Zone and equator. We’ll have the flexibility to cross at a lower degree of longitude, or to continue on up to 128 or 130, depending on the weather and wind. Our tentative plan is to keep going south to maybe between 12 to 10 degrees or so and then before we get too far south and in to the doldrums, turn west again to wherever we decide to cross through the Zone and over the equator.
The top of the rudder post is sort of wobbling side to side and there is fiberglass powder and some fiberglass bits underneath of it. We’ve been hearing loud snapping and grinding noises for days now, especially when the stern gets shoved sideways by following seas. The floor transmits the broken snapping movement of the rudder through your feet, which is disconcerting. We’re hoping that the rudder doesn’t fall off before we get to land, or more realistically that it doesn’t damage the lower rudder bearing assembly and start some leaking or binding problems. The closest land is Puerto Vallarta, but that is over 900 miles upwind through 6 to 8 foot swells. The next closest land is the Marquesas Islands, about 1800 miles away. And the Marquesas don’t have any boat yards or haul out facilities as far as we know. The closest place with modern haul out facilities is Papeete, which is another 700 or 800 miles past the Marquesas, with the low lying current inflicted Tuamotu Archipelago in between.
Data entry for day 7 (covering data from 1 pm on April 13th to 1 pm on April 14th):
24 hour Mileage towards waypoint: (648 - 525) = 123 miles
Wind Speed: 14 knots (True)
Boat Speed at time of log entry: 5.5 knots
Sail Plan: 100% main, no genoa
Wave Height/State: 1 foot wind waves, 6 foot swells, long period
Sky/Clouds: Mostly sunny, scattered puffy clouds
Course/GPS Bearing to Waypoint: 215 magnetic, 231 GPS
Barometer: 1016
Temp: 81 degrees F.
Humidity: 78%
My Handheld GPS distance to waypoint/Hiva Oa: 525 and 1709
Location: 11.03.563, 119.09.510
Day 8 - April 14, Thursday
It was really hard to sleep last night as the boat was being hit with swells and waves from two directions, both mostly from astern but different angles. The result was the stern was getting tossed around and the boat was rolling quite a bit and the rudder was really snapping and grinding, more than it had before. Through the dark night I had to lay on my mattress with my fingers wrapped around the edges holding on, which, combined with the fear of the rudder falling off, makes it quite hard to sleep, eh?
We have changed course and reduced sail to 100% main only, no headsail, to lessen the forces being applied to our rudder. In this configuration we don’t hear the grinding noises, nor feel the twitches transmitted through the floorboards of the cockpit. We’ll see if the grinding picks up again when we unfurl the headsail to increase our speed. It isn’t speed that hurts the damaged rudder as much as the lateral torques inflicted on it when the stern is tossed this way and that.
The odd 15 foot swells roll by under the boat occasionally, quite high above the horizon visible from inside our cockpit. My fishing line disappears back into the swells optimistically, and hopefully. We have one more meal of our fresh caught not frozen tuna before we have to break into the (no doubt still delicious) tuna that we froze right after catching it.
The solar panels are really doing their thing today. I’m very impressed with the AGM batteries as opposed to my boat’s old fashioned lead acid golf cart batteries. In particular, I like how quickly the AGMs charge up. Emil has to run his engine (with its two! alternators) for only two hours to charge them from down around 50%. Mine would take 6 or 8 hours to reach 100%. AGMs may have other pros and cons, but this quick charging resulting in less engine running time to charge is really a big deal for cruisers.
We’re having trouble getting weather data downloads from the satphone. We were successful once, a couple of days ago, but haven’t been able to get the phone and computer to handshake since then. They weren’t ever used together before the voyage, so the whole process and setup was never ironed out. It is tough getting it done underway, even with the ability to call the tech support department at Ocens, which we have done. The speaker for the cradle was never tested before we left and it now turns out that it is almost inaudible. The reception in the main salon isn’t good if the phone is out of its cradle, and since the computer is in the salon you need the phone to work there. The phone plugs into a cradle connected to a good external antenna, but again, the speaker doesn’t work when it’s in the cradle and there is no external speaker and the headset jack is a non-standard possibly proprietary jack. Dominique is the one working on getting the bugs out of the system, as he is more patient than I am – I get cranky when I work on the damn thing. A weakness on my part that I would have to overcome if computer savvy D wasn’t here.
We discovered that the roller furler line has two huge worn frayed places in it from chafe. The longest suitable piece of replacement line on the boat is only 40 feet long, so we cut out the frayed part of the old line and tied a knot in it. The knot is a pain in the butt as it doesn’t fit through the turning blocks on the stanchions and gets caught on the cleat that turns the line towards the winch, and on the winch itself. Every time you get to the knot you have to muscle the line past the obstacle, which means, usually, that roller furling is a two person job.
Data entry for day 8, ending the April 14 to April 15, 1pm to 1pm, 24 hour period:
24 hour Mileage towards waypoint: (525 - 393) = 132 miles towards waypoint
Wind Speed: 11 knots (True)
Boat Speed at time of log entry: 5.5 knots
Sail Plan: 100% main, 50% genoa
Wave Height/State: 1 foot wind waves, 5 foot swell long period
Sky/Clouds: mostly sunny
Course: 2 magnetic, 229 GPS
Barometer: 1012
Temp: 82 degrees F.
Humidity: 86%
My Handheld GPS distance to waypoint/Hiva Oa: 393 and 1580
Location: 9.51.525, 121.03.173
Day 9 - April 15, Friday
We’ve been playing with the satphone data connections for the past day or so, trying to figure out how to configure it so we can get weather data downloads. It looks like the docking station at the boat’s nav station was not installed properly, as we can’t get data to flow between the phone and either computer when it’s in the docking station, but can when the phone and computer are up in the cockpit. The docking station is wired to the big external antenna that would supposedly allow much faster data downloads. The docking station is charging the phone and lights up, but the data handshake isn’t taking place. Maybe a wiring issue, or maybe a driver issue but we have reinstalled all the software Emil has with no joy. Also, we can’t get Emil’s computer to link up with the phone directly, only mine. It’s a nuisance to have to be out on deck holding the phone up to the sky linked to a laptop via a short 4 foot USB cable. The docking station was installed at Marine Service Center in Anacortes, but apparently never tested by them after they installed it. All of the satphone/weather download software installed easily and quickly in my laptop and we are now are able to download weather data using the phone to my computer’s USB direct link, but not using the docking station. I’ve got to take the phone and computer out into the cockpit to get a clear line of sight to the sky for the phone. The phone by itself doesn’t get good reception in the main salon. Now, I’ve got to figure out how to post to my SailBlogs account and send and receive email.
We’ve slowed down in the last couple of days, as the wind is down somewhat, and as we aren’t driving quite as hard because of the cracks in the rudder mounting system. Instead of making an average of 7 or more knots we’re making about 5 to 6. Both our ride and the rudder are more comfortable at slower speeds, and thus our sleeping is better. I’ve read a lot of puddle jump blogs commenting on the fairly active and uncomfortable ride they have experienced going to the Marquesas. Our ride is a bit active too, but, remembering that there is about 1,000 miles of fetch to 125 longitude, it isn’t hard to see that the seas might build a bit even with only 20 knots true blowing for days in a row. When the wind dies down, the wind waves quickly die down and the swells gradually reduce over 5 to 10 hours or so. Then, they build right back up when the wind gets going again. And when the wind changes direction slightly you get some cross seas that add to the bucking horse experience until the seas all get organized to the new wind direction.
Night watches, other than having to be awake at night, are great. Warm, lots of stars, the 16 gigs of music in my Droid X, moonlight (yes, we’ve got the moon for almost the whole trip, what luck!). The stars on the horizon are mostly obscured by clouds on the horizon all around us, but overhead they are nice. The sky isn’t crystal clear because of atmospheric moisture and scattered clouds. All in all, the nights are very pleasant.
Dominique brought a couple of fun novel-like books written by Tom Holt. One is titled “Divine Comedies”. They are fun to read and have a nice twist on reality, the gods, society and human nature without being pompous or judgmental.
An inspection of the bilge storage compartments revealed a bunch of cabbage and cauliflower had started to rot and stink. I washed them in salt water on the stern platform, leaving a trail of rotten vegetable leaves for the boats following us and was able to salvage almost all of the cabbage. The cauliflower didn’t fare as well. We screwed up on our food storage procedures – I think you are supposed to take the plastic bags off before you store the veges in the floor storage compartments, eh? We’ll eat more veges and less tuna for the next couple of days.
We spotted two interesting patches of water today, about two hours apart from each other, but both sporting the same phenomena. It looked like a tide rip, or a place where two currents came together. Each was the approximately three or four football fields in area. The surrounding sea was all well organized, with swell and wind waves going in the same direction, very uniform. The patches, though, were pitching turbulently, with clearly visible waves coming from another direction and the waves meeting and rising up like the water in a Maytag. The waves were three to five feet high and shooting up water as they smashed together. Upwelling? A nuclear sub blowing its ballast?
Data entry for day 9, ending the April 15 to April 16, 1pm to 1pm, 24 hour period:
24 hour Mileage towards waypoint: (393 - 263) = 130
Wind Speed: 12 knots (True)
Boat Speed at time of log entry: 4.5 knots
Sail Plan: 100% main, 50% genoa, wing and wing
Wave Height/State: 1 foot wind waves, 6 foot swell long period
Sky/Clouds: Cloudy, thin bright overcast
Course: 227 magnetic, 225 GPS
Barometer: 1011
Temp: 82degrees F.
Humidity: 92%
My Handheld GPS distance to waypoint/Hiva Oa: 263 and 1452
Location: 08.36.913 N., 122.53 077W.
Day 10 - April 16, Saturday
Nothing to report. Another beautiful day in paradise and I don’t mean Paradise Village, either! Last night as I was standing my watch I felt this great sense of contentment, fulfillment, and peace. It was so perfect, with the bright moonlight, the warm trade wind breeze, running downwind at 6 knots, the boat surfing a bit on the small swells, the great beautiful sea all around us in our little boat, the rudder behaving itself. That moment was definitely what sailing to the south seas is all about, or at least one of the things.
The seas are very organized, coming from just one direction, so the back of the boat isn’t being slewed around. The current action on the rudder is very gentle and benign. We don’t hear any of the cracking snapping creaking noises, nor are we seeing the top of the rudder post oscillating side to side. If this keeps up, the rudder should stay on and the boat won’t be sinking at least before we get to Hiva Oa. Nigel Caulder described the construction of boat rudders in his Mechanical and Electrical book. I noticed that he kept repeating the words “catastrophic” and “sinking” when he was discussing the failure of the rudder bearings or support assemblies.
We’ve got the “new” whisker pole up and we’re flying wing and wing, on a mostly furled headsail and full main. A couple of months ago a guy in the lagoon at Barra de Navidad announced on the morning net that he had a whisker pole for coconuts. Emil got it for 50 coconuts. The pole is homemade, with extendable aluminum tubes, and seems to work ok. The same day another guy announced that his wife wasn’t ready to do the puddle jump so he had the Navonics chart chip for the south seas available for coconuts, which Emil also got as he hadn’t bought his chart card yet.
Today the boat’s motion is easy with just an occasional lurch. The ride is pretty comfortable. The GRIB files are showing lessening wind as we approach the ITCZ. We’re aiming for the spot where the higher pressure zones in the northern and southern hemispheres are closest to each other, resulting in the shortest distance over the doldrums. That's right, I said GRIB files. Emil went deep into his trouble shooting mode and after a lot of work found that the terminator on the external antenna to cradle wire had been improperly installed and was defective. He fixed it and now the cradle works and we're getting weather and email!
Today has been a lesson in patience. Very light wind has resulted in boat speeds of 3 to 4 knots. The temptation is to forget that you are in a sailboat and to start the engine. However, on the GRIB files I can see 600 miles of doldrums to cross, and we’ve got only 90 gallons of diesel. Go figure. And, really, what’s the matter with making 4 knots all day long using the free wind to push you along? Is this about the journey or getting to the next anchorage ASAP? By the way, we figure we passed the halfway point today, about noon or so. Exciting, eh?
Data entry for day 10, ending the April 16 to April 17, 1pm to 1pm, 24 hour period:
24 hour Mileage towards waypoint: (263 - 155) = 108 miles
Wind Speed: 5 knots (True)
Boat Speed at time of log entry: 3.3 knots
Sail Plan: 100% main, 0% genoa
Wave Height/State: 1 foot wind waves, 6 foot swell long period
Sky/Clouds: Cloudy, squalls, intermittent showers
Course: 210 magnetic, 215 GPS
Barometer: 1013
Temp: 79 degrees F.
Humidity: 63% (with intermittent heavy rain!)
My Handheld GPS distance to Zone (WPT)/Hiva Oa: 155 and 1344
Location: 07.37.456 N., 124.29.629 W.
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