Wing on Wing

All systems normal. We are flying the jib on the port side poled out and the main is on the starboard side all the way out. This is called sailing "wing on wing" and is great when you want to go straight downwind. It does cause the boat to roll some but what else is new with us so far. It is more comfortable a ride than what we have been having.

We did some minor repairs this morning on the wind vane steering system. The control lines were chafing through so Cindy and I got on our knees and elbows on the stern and took the old lines off, cut off the chafed areas and reinstalled them. I also moved a block (pulley) a little to hopefully stop some of the chafe and I put some vinyl hose over a couple of areas to protect the lines. Interesting work watching the water go by you below where you are working.

The weather is grey and drab with lots of humidity and dark cumulus clouds - not stormy and not rainy just cloudy. We have to pick dead flying fish off the deck, and even one out of the cockpit, every morning. They fly up there and get stuck and die. We also have boobies flying around us all the time. They are fascinating and fun to watch, swooping right on the tops of the waves and swells. They catch fish by diving into the water going full bore. In the anchorages we were in they would dive bomb straight down - here it is from an low angle. But, they keep eyeing our rigging as a place to rest instead of on the water. Occasionally they figure out how to land on our spreaders and then we find fresh or dried boobie crap, like we did this morning. So we also cleaned up things again. I don't like killing things but my slingshot comes out when I see them but so far I haven't killed anything.

We are in a routine and just cruising along. More tomorrow.

Couldn't get this out so this is tomorrow (Thursday the 30th). We just passed 1000nm out from Zihua earlier. Today has been the roughest so far with rain, lightning, thunder and high (30kt) winds. Too rough to sleep. The boat is cleaner though and I rinsed off outside after soaping up inside. We also have to remove flying fish every day that fly on to the deck and die, and even a sole squid today. It is still overcast and rainy but the wind is down a bit although the swells are now about 8'. Moving along with double reefs at 6-7kts.

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Flying Along - Finally

MD is honkin' going over 6 knots most of the time and we have seen 8.5 kts a few times. The wind picked up finally and is from the NNE or NE but is hard to estimate because the seas are so confused and the boat is twisting and turning like we are in the proverbial washing machine. You have to hold hard hard and wedge yourself to stay standing anywhere and if you move you do so slowly and in time with the rocking, and then you don't let go of one hand hold until you have the next one - hard.

It is real easy to get hurt by going flying yourself in these conditions. It also makes it hard to sleep even though our bunks are only about 2.5 ft across, your body rocks back and forth, and if you do wedge in, your guts move back and forth anyway. Very weird. This is the part that most cruisers hate about passages. At least neither one of us is seasick anymore.

We are almost 700 nm away from Zihua now and starting to plan our visit to French Polynesia in between managing the boat, sails and boat projects. We are also doing some reading on the side, and we even talk to each other some of the time. To the amazement of both of us, we are getting along as well or better than we were at anchor.

I am having email software problems and cannot send or receive email from our ke7bqn address, so if you sent something and we haven't replied then send it to the wcz6559 address. I just love software problems, especially when you can't get online to deal with them which is what all the software out there expects now. I have sent email to the support guys but have not heard back. Oh well, life on a boat.

Almost 600 miles out from Zihua

We are pitching and rolling on Maggie Drum again today and to tell the truth it is very tiring. The wind is so light it will not keep the sails full especially with the swell coming in to our port quarter (behind the beam but not dead on the stern). Each big swell heels the boat over which backwinds the sails so they luff and then fill hard and bang when the boat rocks back the other way. The boat creaks, the sails pop, the boom and cars all rattle and groan, and MD shudders big time. Nerve wracking. I did not sleep well coming off my 8-midnight watch and then had to get up at 4:30am so Cindy could nap. The wind is out of the north and we are going WSW. We would like to be going SW. If the wind would clock around a bit to the NE we can go more south. Unfortunately the swells will follow the wind so we will always have that, but if the wind will strengthen the sails will stay full and we will be heeled over in a steadier postion.

Rocking and heeling makes it very hard for us to deal with food, cooking and dishes though. Cindy does almost all the cooking as she will not let me touch the refrigerator or stores. I like to cook but I think I am better off not now since you really need to have 4 arms and hands - two to hold on to something and two to cook with. The pots will not stay on the burners even though the stove is gimbeled and rocks with the motion of the boat. Everything out slides on you and sometimes that means on to the floor. Yesterday Cindy got ice out for a Ginger Ale and it fell in to the flour for the pork chops. I rinsed the cubes off but not well so we had flour in our drink. Not too bad actually.

Our friends ahead of us on White Swan had their main boom come loose and crashed down on to the cabin and probably the cockpit enclosure (bimini) causing some damage that they haven't described too much yet. Sounds like they lost a cotter pin holding a pin in the linkage at the gooseneck (a swivel joint holding the boom to the main mast). The boom is absolutely critical to sailing the main so they are working to get that right. And, it happened at 0030 (12:30am) last night in the dark, in the swells, probably from all the rocking and stress on the gear. Our gooseneck is pretty strong but I did go check it out again just to make sure.

We had another fire drill yesterday as our cruising spinnaker wrapped hard around the jib forestay in a classic hourglass or "bow tie" spinnaker wrap. The spinnaker (ours is asymmetrical and easier to deal with than an true symmetrical spinnaker) got backwinded and wrapped the stay a couple of times, and tight in the middle with the upper and lower parts still catching air. The chute is a light-weight nylon for light air sailing and we had it up all the previous night and are thankful it did not wrap then. We will not do that again!! We got it unwrapped by getting on it double speed. I had Cindy haul down hard on the chute's sheet and I got the motor on and we spun the boat around two times underneath the chute to allow the wind to untangle it. This worked this time but might not always. It was quite a scare for us as three boats in the Baja Ha-Ha two years ago got their chutes so tangled they had to get to port to get someone up the rigging to unwind it in calm conditions. Not something to imagine doing in a swell with wind. We put the chute back in its back where it will stay until ideal conditions. We are making good time now anyway.

So life goes on. This is day seven of the passage. We both are doing some reading and studying. I just finished reading a junk adventure novel and Cindy is reading a headier but more depressing "novel". We are also studying weather and weather forecasting, stars in the night sky, and guidebooks to French Polynesia. Yesterday we got passed close by a big motor tanker M/T Jutul going north to some port in the states or Mexico. I hailed him on the VHF radio to thank him for altering course so he would not hit us. We saw him several miles away as he was huge but he also saw us with our sails up and seemed surprised we were going so fast. He asked where we were coming from and where we were going and told us Bon Voyage. He had a French accent and it was kewl to chat with him. He said he would make a note in his ship's log about seeing us - presumably to notify the authorities if we turn up missing, which is NOT going to happen to MD.

We may not do everything right but we are learning and building character and memories for when we are too creaky to do this any more.

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two day spinaker run

Email to Dave on Megabyte
Dave,
It took a lot more work and info than I realized to add Ham Winlink on top of the
sailmail. One of the issues is the Yotreps thing because now our position reports
go out on KE7BQN as you have found out. I did mention it in the blog that it might
be either one but Cindy's sister already had trouble. Could you help and put a
note on the blog that KE7BQN is the right one and may be even change the link on
the right side to get to it or make a note on the link title. I think I might have
done that.

We had an interesting morning. We have been running under our asym spinnaker for
two days through the night and no problem even though that was a somewhat risky
thing to do at night. Well, we got a wrap around the furled jib on the forestay
this morning in the broad daylight and what a circus jerk that was. Lots of excitement
but we finally spun the boat around it enough times to let the wind slowly unfurl
it, meanwhile Cindy is on the foredeck holding on to the sheet straight up and down
to keep it from causing more trouble and the bloody thing lifted her off her back
on the dink. She was not liking this drill at all, but we got it unwrapped and
down and now that the wind is up we are under jib and main. Remember all the boats
on the HaHa that wrapped so bad they had to get to anchorage or Cabo to get them
undone?? Well, that was going through my mind. Got the ol' adrenalin flowing let
me tell you. All OK now but pooped.

Thanks for the tip and help,
Joe & Cyn

Link for yotreps

Everyone:
Dave here from Megabyte. We are friends of Joe and Cindy. They are all doing really well somewhere out in the middle of the Pacific.

If you want to follow them on yotreps you will find them listed under the address of: KE7BQN at http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/reporter_list.php and not under the other address of WCZ6559 which they originally used at first. There is no boat name under that listing but that is them.

Dave...
MV Megabyte
dlenartz@earthlink.net

Sailing along in light airs

It is the start of our fourth day out and we have started to settle in to a routine of 4 hour watches at night and naps during the day. Last night Cindy made some great chili with beans that we put a fresh poblano pepper in. We will sorely miss our fresh veggies when they are gone by eating or just going bad, hopefully not the latter. We brought 7 dozen eggs that have never been refrigerated and they will keep if you turn them every day so that is one of Cyn's jobs.

Yesterday afternoon we turned off the engine again in light but steady wind and I rigged up the Monitor wind vane which will steer the boat by the wind direction. This allows the sails to keep full as it will turn the boat when the wind direction changes. So we set the boat up in the direction we want to go and then set the wind vane to stay the same relative to the wind and away we go. The down side is when the wind changes direction too much, you have to adjust the wind vane and trim the sails to match the new relative wind. Sounds complicated but it's not when you get used to it. The wind vane steering does not take any electric power which we have to manage very carefully on board.

We keep hoping to get to the steady winds of the Northeast trades but they are farther out. We are over 300 nm out now and heading more or less west still. The ocean is fascinating to watch. We are the only thing in any direction as far as you can see. When there is no wind, the water is smooth and reflects either the sky or the clouds, and when there are both, the water continually changes colors in an amazing fashion. The blue is a steady cobalt blue. The clouds of course give it a grey color but very sharp and defined. The waters in the distance move up and down with waves forming in endlessly different patterns. It reminds me of fields of wheat in Nebraska with its endless fields of grain blowing in the wind. Of course, the wheat can't move up and down the same magnitude as can the ocean. The water is always coming at you from from one or direction or other and then moving away from you at the other. When the swells are large it is pretty cool and sometimes a little spooky.

We are doing some reading for fun and some for learning. I am studying weather chart analysis and forecasting and Cindy is studying more on navigation. I have to do some more troubleshooting on our newly rebuilt watermaker which is still not producing fresh water. We have lots of water on board but it sure will be nice to be able to make more on demand. We listen to the radio nets about 4 times a day and the big one of the morning is on now. We checked in and told everyone where we are at and called Ranger and Oz behind us to join us on a local net at 9am so we can compare notes along the way to the Marquesas. Time to go back to the boat and breakfast.

One day out from Zihua on the way

I was going to write this first thing this morning as the sun came up but I was too queasy from the motion of the boat, especially after our rough passage yesterday. We left yesterday morning from Zihua expecting calm seas and light winds. However, Mother Nature had other plans and we had to fight strong winds (on our nose and on our course of course) and rough swells from the same direction. We ran the engine for the first three hours and then got shamed by our buddies on S/V White Swan to shut off the motor and sail. The best course we could lay sailing was 208 degrees true and what we wanted was 270 degrees true, or due west. The forecast was for light winds close in turning to stronger winds out of the north but it never happened. So we had a wet boat and seasickness until about 3am the next morning. We both took some anti-quease pills and they help but the side effects are way bad - irritability, cloudy thinking, sleepiness. I have to admit (bad boy) that I actually catnapped through part of my late night watch, and we made it, but will not do that again. No more pills.

To point out why that is important, right after dawn this morning, I had to change course slightly to give this big tanker room to cross our bow, otherwise it would have been close. The officers on the bridge came out to look at the crazies in the little sailboat going away from land. When this gets posted to our blog, a position report will also go out to both Yotreps and Winlink for vessel tracking. The link on the right side at the top of the blog will take you to Yotreps and you can find position reports for Winlink at www.winlink.org but I can't give you the details right now - you'll have to figure it out. Our vessel radio code name is WCZ6559 on Yotreps, and it will be either the same or KE7BQN on Winlink.

We are now the longest distance from land we have ever been, although Maggie Drum has done this for years with the previous owners. Maggie Drum spent eight years in the South Pacific before and so is just coming home again. We on the other hand have a LOT to learn. This morning on our "Westbounders" radio net we found out that one of our buddy boats that had left the day before us decided to head back and spend the rest of the season in Mexico. They said they just weren't ready and we completely understand. You have to be mentally and physically ready to do this since you are committed in a big way when you go this far. All our boats got wet from the big swells on the bows and their computer took a saltwater shower from a leaking port above the nav station and that was the wake-up call for them. We will miss their easy smiles and companionship.

We will likely have to motor up to 200-300 nm from shore before the north-east trade winds kick in and we can sail a good course. Our plan is to go west as long as we can until we get the trades, then angle down to 4 degrees north 130 degrees west then head south across the equator (yaa-hoo) then west to the Marquesas. I apologize if I am repeating a previous blog, but can't claim any mental competency or else why would I be out here?

We are very psyched (sick or happy one of the other) to be doing this. We didn't want to wait longer since you never know what accidents or illness can befall you on land. It feels like a for real adventure but is almost easy with today's modern conveniences like chartplotters, GPS, radar, radios, email, EPIRBs, etc. BTW - for you safety conscious types out there - an EPIRB is an Electronic Position I? Reporting Beacon. If you were to accidentally sink the boat or have to abandon it on the high seas, you can set this thing off, or it will set off automatically in sea water, and it will broadcast a satellite message to these specialized location satellites (not GPS). The US and other countries got together and put this in place for all mariners including commercial. It will allow rescuers to home in on your position quickly and send help if possible or direct any mariners in the vicinity to the EPIRB's location. I think it will broadcast for at least 3 days. Ours is brand new and state of the art. The NOAA.gov website has more info or you can Google it. We also have a high seas type emergency life raft with supplies packed in and lots and lots of other emergency gear - radios, water, food, life jackets, etc., etc. And, Whitby 42's are one of the strongest of the world's cruising sailboats with hundreds of thousands of off shore miles on them. The above is for the nervous nellies out there, who we understand and love. We have every intention of getting there in one piece and if not with the boat with ourselves.

I can't say the same thing for the boobies who park on our boat spreaders or bow rail and empty the partially digested fish dinners they have been having on our decks and gear. In Zihua, we bought 15 gallons of extra fresh water to at least get some of the dirt and grime off our decks before we left, and 30 minutes later a very large and proud Booby sat on our mainmast spreader and pooped all over our nice and clean solar panels. Yuck!! This stuff not only smells, it is one of the hardest substances known to friend or fowl to get off once it has dried. This is for real guano and we have to walk on it and try to get it off. So I got out my trusty, but rusty, slingshot and my bag of marbles and chased him off. I love birds and watching these expert fishers get their fish, but my love turns to unmitigated hatred when they park on the boat. One did so out here and Cindy chased him off but they are very unafraid of people and sometimes they will not leave. So, I don't want to hurt one, but they had better not try me!

We will write as often as we can, which may be daily, or weekly or every other week. If you do not hear from us for longer than you think, don't worry, we probably are having a problem with the radio or something else, like radio reception or get too busy or whatever. We have lots of support out here so don't be calling the Coast Guard if we miss an email or blog report right away. And, we love you all. Now it's time for the next radio net. Bye

Zihua - Dinghy Beach - Ney & wife Christine in middle

This is the dinghy beach at Zihua in 2005. Ney and his wife Christine are in the middle on the right. Cindy on the left, then Steve on S/V Naiad, then Dave on M/V Dream On, then Ney & Christine, then Jane - Dave's wife. Jane and Dave sold their powerboat this last year and are living in Zihua as landlubbers. They are great people who worked hard on the Zihua Sailfest last year. Ney is the dinghy helper who was robbed on the beach at 4 AM although there is some discussion that may be the whole story is not out yet. Who knows? He is a nice guy who has to stay on the beach from early morning to 10-11 at night working for tips.

Cindy & Jesus the 1st Dinghy Beach Helper - Zihua

Maggie Drum at Anchor at Zihua 2005

Working hard in Zihua

Hola,
We are still in Zihua getting ready to push off. Our new target departure is next Monday, one week away. There are two reasons for that date. One, we need a new watermaker part before I can reassemble the pile of parts on the workbench. It would work for a while if I just put in the new seals that were delivered by John on S/V Oz last week but they would wear out fast because the pump piston shaft is rough and would score the new seals quickly and it would leak. Two, there is a slight chance for actual wind next week per another boat's professional weather forecast (they paid for it). Right now there are light and variable winds for the first 500 nm (nautical miles). Any chance for wind is worth waiting for as we burn a gallon of diesel for every 4 nm, so that would be 125 gals if we motored 500 nm. We only carry 200 gals which is huge compared to other boats here, but then we would have to replace the fuel in the South Pacific at huge prices and we might have to do it all with jerry jugs.

This week we got fuel and water delivered in jugs to our boat by panga. The diesel was in 50 liter (11 gal) jugs and the water was in 5 gal jugs. All of it had to be siphoned in to our tanks, jug by jug. The diesel jugs were very heavy but we only had five of them. We had 20 water jugs so it takes quite a while to deal with them. We also hired a local to clean the bottom of Maggie Drum to get rid of the barnacles and grass that grows so fast here. He dove on the boat using Scuba and with a helper for the waterline cleaning, spent 90 minutes to do it. We will have to clean the bottom of the dinghy on the beach before we haul it up the last time to get off its barnacles. Last year we used¨"Underpants Man" to clean the bottom here. He is a stocky and dark local who swims out to the boats with a little empty water bottle for a float in his BVD's. He will spend 3 hours to do the same job and he does not use Scuba so he must have excellent lungs.

Some bad things happened this weekend. Ney, the guy who helps land and launch dinghies from the dinghy beach everyday, was sleeping in a dink on the beach on Thursday night. He was robbed by two thugs at 4:00 AM. The took his wedding ring, watch, flashlight, VHF radio and all his earnings for the day (about $150). He wasn't hurt and he managed to catch one of them and the police caught the other one. They have the option of giving back the goods or spend 5 years in jail. Ney was shook up and went out and got drunk so he missed a couple of days at the beach. I saw him at Rick's Bar just now and he still is not looking great but is OK. All the cruisers are going to kick in something extra for his tip jar.

The other thing that happened was an accident between one of the parasail boats at La Ropa beach and another sailboat. The parasailors are these high-powered ski boats who tow a customer off the beach with a parachute and a long line. They take a loop or two around the harbor through and around the sailboats. We have always been waiting for them to hook the rigging on one of the boats and it finally happened to S/V Last Resort (Steve & Susan). It broke a spreader off and damaged the transom and other rigging. Evidently the guy being towed just fell in the water and was OK. The outfit running the boat said they would pay but who knows. Last Resort was bound for Central America. This will screw up their schedule at the least. More adventures in Paradise.

Just so every one understands, it is very safe for all of us here. These are two isolated incidents and based on our experiences are no more likely here than in the US. Robbers are not lurking around every corner here and we don´t even pay much attention to that just because it doesn't happen any more here than in Buffalo and may be much less.

Cindy is off to the Commercial - the local big supermarket - kind of like a Wal-Mart in the states. She is getting more odds and ends. Later in the week she will stock up on meats but can't today because we have to help another cruiser and can't get the meats to our freezer quick enough. Cindy is also continuing to deal with the Identity Theft she suffered by a nogoodnik in Denver who opened credit cards and DSL accounts in her name. I just downloaded the updated police report for her. What a hassle, and expensive for the banks and credit card companies, but they deserve it for being too easy in issuing cards. A huge hassle for us too. There should be stricter laws on all this, with jail time for every son of a gun of does it.

More and more of our friends are leaving. The anchorage is getting quiet and empty as one or two boats leave every other day or so. And there will be a mass exodus when all the boats going west to the South Pacific leave. Every day we check in with the HF radio nets to track the whereabouts and condition of the 4 boats we know have left. They are now in the trade winds and really moving after motoring out.

We are psyched up to go and can't wait to get out there. One more week!!