n late afternoon on day 8, the sea and sky simply morphed into liquid silver -- this photo is almost straight out of the camera, no tweaks except for sharpening -- it was the most mesmerizing scene imaginable, watching the water pass took on an almost hallucinatory quality
I made a little video clip, which doesn't quite capture it, but still:
www.vimeo.com/226519
we all just sat in the cockpit watching this amazing scene all afternoon... and at some point that evening, we tacked onto port for the first time since the Molokai Channel
Saturday, June 30
day 8 - water
just had to add this one to the blog, to show just how insanely calm the ocean was...!
and don't forget, there's LOTS more photos on my Flickr site -- please feel free to browse!
and don't forget, there's LOTS more photos on my Flickr site -- please feel free to browse!
day 8 - flat calm and birds
from my journal:
"day 8 (thurs) at 7am -- we must be right underneath the pacific high, as the sea's gone completely still -- a strange silvery blue stretching out in all directions under a still-overcast sky -- it seems so strange that an ocean that's been so consistently restless for so many days can also suddenly be so quiet -- after all, it's a continuous body of water, should the waves elsewhere at least cause sloshes here? I understand the physics of it, but that doesn't make it any less strange -- and completely wonderful as well."
we spent the day with the motor and autopilot on, otherwise we'd have made no progress at all -- at noon our position was 34° 44' 8" N, 143° 23' 3" W, having gone roughly 140 nautical miles in the past 24 hours -- slowing down as the wind got lighter and lighter! 1028 miles to go to san francisco (and pearl harbor was now 1120 miles behind, having crossed the halfway point)
food report: David made a monster quesadilla for breakfast, which Mouse called "the quesadilla from hell" -- some huge number of eggs, cheese, and onions all neatly sandwiched between two tortillas and cooked in voluminous quantities of butter... damn that was tasty.
and they are small in this picture, but hopefully you can see two small dark birds -- i've not been able to identify them precisely, I think some kind of storm petrel? we saw them constantly all trip long, they flew in erratic fluttery patterns, almost like bats -- and at night they often followed the boat's transom closely, perhaps better able to see fishes in the aft light?
we also saw occasional albatrosses, but they seemed to know when I had a camera out & stayed far from the boat unless I was camera-free -- elusive creatures, and utterly beautiful to watch them flying -- and even more occasionally a tern flew past, but that's it for the bird life on the open sea...
"day 8 (thurs) at 7am -- we must be right underneath the pacific high, as the sea's gone completely still -- a strange silvery blue stretching out in all directions under a still-overcast sky -- it seems so strange that an ocean that's been so consistently restless for so many days can also suddenly be so quiet -- after all, it's a continuous body of water, should the waves elsewhere at least cause sloshes here? I understand the physics of it, but that doesn't make it any less strange -- and completely wonderful as well."
we spent the day with the motor and autopilot on, otherwise we'd have made no progress at all -- at noon our position was 34° 44' 8" N, 143° 23' 3" W, having gone roughly 140 nautical miles in the past 24 hours -- slowing down as the wind got lighter and lighter! 1028 miles to go to san francisco (and pearl harbor was now 1120 miles behind, having crossed the halfway point)
food report: David made a monster quesadilla for breakfast, which Mouse called "the quesadilla from hell" -- some huge number of eggs, cheese, and onions all neatly sandwiched between two tortillas and cooked in voluminous quantities of butter... damn that was tasty.
and they are small in this picture, but hopefully you can see two small dark birds -- i've not been able to identify them precisely, I think some kind of storm petrel? we saw them constantly all trip long, they flew in erratic fluttery patterns, almost like bats -- and at night they often followed the boat's transom closely, perhaps better able to see fishes in the aft light?
we also saw occasional albatrosses, but they seemed to know when I had a camera out & stayed far from the boat unless I was camera-free -- elusive creatures, and utterly beautiful to watch them flying -- and even more occasionally a tern flew past, but that's it for the bird life on the open sea...
Friday, June 29
day 7/day 8 - halfway!!!
we officially hit our halfway point of the trip a few minutes before 3am on day 8 (june 14) -- just as David and I were going off our nightwatch. while he was below waking the others, I took that moment of solitude to dig out my old apartment key, to my place on mariposa ave. -- I'd lived there for the past 7 years, and while I loved living there, it also had contained a lot of heartbreak and difficult times, peices of which I was really hoping to let fall away on this trip, to finally leave behind. so, i held my key tight for a few moments, concentrating on all the comfort that home had given me -- and then chucked it overboard. so it can lie there on the ocean floor, a thousand miles from the nearest land, and hopefully take some of those harder memories with it -- not to pretend they didn't happen, but to hopefully help me move on to some new places.
and then everyone piled into the cockpit -- Mouse had a sailing friend, Earl, who'd passed away before they could do an ocean crossing together, so she'd brought a beer (specifically a Miller Light, they'd always drunk them together) to share with him at our halfway point -- so she opened and sipped his beer, then threw it in the sea (aluminum cans oxidize pretty quickly in salt water, as long as you are sure to make the can sink), and she, David and I all joined Earl with beers of our own, and we all toasted being almost as far from land as anyone on earth can be -- the MOST remote place is probably a little north of where we were, would need to triangulate from hawaii, the west coast, and the aleutians to the north -- but we were at least a thousand miles from any land, which felt pretty darned cool.
and others came to the party as well! we had two birds (petrels?) following the boat closely, swooping and diving in our aft running light, almost landing on the transom -- and this was also the ONLY time on the trip we saw huge clusters of phosphorescent planktons, looking for all the world like giant paper lanterns or disco-balls under water!!! that plus the usual sparkles at the water's surface really added to the festivities.
and like all good party guests, they knew when to leave -- when David and I woke up again at 6am for our next watch, birds and phosphorescence were both gone, leaving only a few isolated sparks in the surf as we passed along the ocean's quiet surface -- but it felt so good to once again be moving CLOSER to something, instead of always getting farther away.
halfway home, hurrah!!!
and then everyone piled into the cockpit -- Mouse had a sailing friend, Earl, who'd passed away before they could do an ocean crossing together, so she'd brought a beer (specifically a Miller Light, they'd always drunk them together) to share with him at our halfway point -- so she opened and sipped his beer, then threw it in the sea (aluminum cans oxidize pretty quickly in salt water, as long as you are sure to make the can sink), and she, David and I all joined Earl with beers of our own, and we all toasted being almost as far from land as anyone on earth can be -- the MOST remote place is probably a little north of where we were, would need to triangulate from hawaii, the west coast, and the aleutians to the north -- but we were at least a thousand miles from any land, which felt pretty darned cool.
and others came to the party as well! we had two birds (petrels?) following the boat closely, swooping and diving in our aft running light, almost landing on the transom -- and this was also the ONLY time on the trip we saw huge clusters of phosphorescent planktons, looking for all the world like giant paper lanterns or disco-balls under water!!! that plus the usual sparkles at the water's surface really added to the festivities.
and like all good party guests, they knew when to leave -- when David and I woke up again at 6am for our next watch, birds and phosphorescence were both gone, leaving only a few isolated sparks in the surf as we passed along the ocean's quiet surface -- but it felt so good to once again be moving CLOSER to something, instead of always getting farther away.
halfway home, hurrah!!!
day 7 - david in the galley
day 7 was a busy one for david -- made his famous curried cornbread with onions for breakfast, plus scrambled eggs made with lots of butter (I swear we ate nothing but butter and cheese this entire trip, yet we all lost weight!) -- and then he whipped up three small pizzas (made on tortillas instead of regular pizza crust) for dinner, as we celebrated *nearly* reaching our halfway point with a bottle of red wine and tasty treats...
(berkeley yacht club members will recognize the t-shirt...!)
at noon PDT, we were located at 32° 49' 0" N, 145° 29' 5" W -- that's something like 155 nautical miles in 24 hours (it varied depending on whether we looked at our distance coming or going -- we'd travelled 160 miles from pearl harbor but only 154 miles toward SF), leaving us 964 n.m. from hawaii, and 1167 n.m. to home -- almost halfway!
skies were thickly overcast all day -- I remember seeing a small break in the clouds late in the afternoon and saying, "it looks like a seal's breathing hole from underneath the ice..." Mouse, David and I all did some laundry in a bucket, so the cockpit was decorated with our things hanging out to dry -- and I read most of my friend Ellen's master's thesis, which strangely took my head completely out of the boat for a while -- hard to readjust to being in the middle of the ocean when i put it down!
Tim told us we'd cross the halfway point sometime during the night, so we opened our wine with dinner to celebrate a little early, and Mouse opened a halfway present from her husband -- such a sweet man! and sweet was the right word, he'd packed TONS of chocolatey treats into the box, plus a book and a video and some various other snacks. thanks Rick, we all greatly appreciated them!!!
(berkeley yacht club members will recognize the t-shirt...!)
at noon PDT, we were located at 32° 49' 0" N, 145° 29' 5" W -- that's something like 155 nautical miles in 24 hours (it varied depending on whether we looked at our distance coming or going -- we'd travelled 160 miles from pearl harbor but only 154 miles toward SF), leaving us 964 n.m. from hawaii, and 1167 n.m. to home -- almost halfway!
skies were thickly overcast all day -- I remember seeing a small break in the clouds late in the afternoon and saying, "it looks like a seal's breathing hole from underneath the ice..." Mouse, David and I all did some laundry in a bucket, so the cockpit was decorated with our things hanging out to dry -- and I read most of my friend Ellen's master's thesis, which strangely took my head completely out of the boat for a while -- hard to readjust to being in the middle of the ocean when i put it down!
Tim told us we'd cross the halfway point sometime during the night, so we opened our wine with dinner to celebrate a little early, and Mouse opened a halfway present from her husband -- such a sweet man! and sweet was the right word, he'd packed TONS of chocolatey treats into the box, plus a book and a video and some various other snacks. thanks Rick, we all greatly appreciated them!!!
day 6/day 7 - foam
our midnight to 3am nightwatch between day 6 and 7 was another wonderful one -- completely clouded over, it felt like we were sailing through a Rothko painting, the world divided into black sky above and even blacker sea below -- i had a friend's album in my earphones, one I hadn't listened to in years but somehow it seemed perfect, as if it was written like a soundtrack for this little scene of sailing on a dark ocean, hundreds of miles from the nearest land... and just as the music was ending, near the end of our watch, David pointed over the side: we'd gotten into our first phosphorescent plankton, the motion of the boat causing them to sparkle and twinkle, like tiny stars caught in the foam rushing past -- so beautiful, especially on a night with no stars of its own!
(this photo was taken on day 7 in regular daylight, so no sparkles, but perhaps your imagination can fill them in...)
(this photo was taken on day 7 in regular daylight, so no sparkles, but perhaps your imagination can fill them in...)
day 6 - squall up ahead
day 6 was a quiet one for me, woke from our night watches feeling frazzled by bad dreams again -- I think ALL of us, at one time or another, had particularly vivid/weird/disturbing dreams while at sea, it seemed to amplify whatever might be on our minds...? so I started the day in a confused mood and generally feeling irritable -- but I also realized, I couldn't stay a sourpuss while living in such close quarters with people, it's just a drag -- so I asked David to let me steer all of our noon-3pm watch, just to give me some time & space to myself -- after all, I ordinarily live alone, and so solitude can be a necessary retreat soemtimes?
so I sat on the helm and stared at the horizon ahead and steered, and found myself focusing in an almost mantra-like way on the peace and quiet I unexpectedly found in Zurich last summer, during my visit with Connie and Kevin -- in particular the tiny hotel room I stayed in, which was up on the attic floor of the building, and was perfectly simple, spare, and calming -- plain solid beams in the ceiling, one window open to green leaves and chattering birds outside, the other looking down over the hotel's little outdoor patio, where people ate breakfast or sipped cocktails in the evening, so mostly-german conversations would drift up to me when I sat on the wide windowsill trying to catch a breeze... and the memory felt like a refuge, really helped me start to shift my mood and let the inner knotted-ness fall away...
noontime position for day 6 (june 12 tuesday) was 31° 04' 5" N, 147° 52' 5" W -- a 24-hour run of 173 nautical miles, and 1321 n.m. to go to SF...
David caught a third mahi in the afternoon (and nearly a fourth, a big one that was blue instead of green, hit one of the lines but then slipped away), and we had delicious mahi tacos for dinner -- the fish was rolled in cornmeal and fried lightly, and David made an amazing Kahuku corn & black bean salsa to go with it, as well as shredded cabbage and rice -- so gourmet!
and just before the end of our 6-9pm watch, while all the others were below cleaning up and/or getting ready for the night, a sooty-dark albatross cruised alongside the boat for a few minutes, long wings dipping and skimming the water's edge, perfectly silhouetted against the sun-backed clouds to the west -- I watched him (him?) for several moments, and then ducked below to get my camera, somehow *knowing* he wouldn't wait for me, but it was too much of a reflex to resist. Of course, he was gone when I came back upstairs -- but again, he added to that growing sense of peacefulness throughout this day -- I wrote in my journal, "I'm no longer asking myself, why did I come on this trip? it's becoming clearer to me, even if I can't articulate it..."
so I sat on the helm and stared at the horizon ahead and steered, and found myself focusing in an almost mantra-like way on the peace and quiet I unexpectedly found in Zurich last summer, during my visit with Connie and Kevin -- in particular the tiny hotel room I stayed in, which was up on the attic floor of the building, and was perfectly simple, spare, and calming -- plain solid beams in the ceiling, one window open to green leaves and chattering birds outside, the other looking down over the hotel's little outdoor patio, where people ate breakfast or sipped cocktails in the evening, so mostly-german conversations would drift up to me when I sat on the wide windowsill trying to catch a breeze... and the memory felt like a refuge, really helped me start to shift my mood and let the inner knotted-ness fall away...
noontime position for day 6 (june 12 tuesday) was 31° 04' 5" N, 147° 52' 5" W -- a 24-hour run of 173 nautical miles, and 1321 n.m. to go to SF...
David caught a third mahi in the afternoon (and nearly a fourth, a big one that was blue instead of green, hit one of the lines but then slipped away), and we had delicious mahi tacos for dinner -- the fish was rolled in cornmeal and fried lightly, and David made an amazing Kahuku corn & black bean salsa to go with it, as well as shredded cabbage and rice -- so gourmet!
and just before the end of our 6-9pm watch, while all the others were below cleaning up and/or getting ready for the night, a sooty-dark albatross cruised alongside the boat for a few minutes, long wings dipping and skimming the water's edge, perfectly silhouetted against the sun-backed clouds to the west -- I watched him (him?) for several moments, and then ducked below to get my camera, somehow *knowing* he wouldn't wait for me, but it was too much of a reflex to resist. Of course, he was gone when I came back upstairs -- but again, he added to that growing sense of peacefulness throughout this day -- I wrote in my journal, "I'm no longer asking myself, why did I come on this trip? it's becoming clearer to me, even if I can't articulate it..."
day 5 - reeling mahi #2 in
photo is David in action, bringing in mahi #2 (who was a big one!) -- and just wanted to add our day 5 stats to the blog (I wish i knew how to edit posts once they're up!):
june 11 (monday) at noon PDT, we were at 29° 30' 3" N, 150° 43' 5" W -- we'd covered 162 nautical miles in the past 24 hours, still keeping a good pace -- and now had 1497 n.m. to go to san francisco
june 11 (monday) at noon PDT, we were at 29° 30' 3" N, 150° 43' 5" W -- we'd covered 162 nautical miles in the past 24 hours, still keeping a good pace -- and now had 1497 n.m. to go to san francisco
day 5 - on the edge of a big pacific high
Day 5 brought us to the edge of a high pressure system: we left the rainsqualls behind, our 20-knot breezes started to calm down a bit, and things generally smoothed out on the boat -- look how much less heeled over we are! everyone took showers for the first time since we left hawaii (it's been far too bouncy prior to this), which made us all clean and happy -- and while I didn't quite manage to wash my hair, the rain from the previous day had washed all the salt out, allowing me to de-tangle it enough for David to braid it, leaving me looking rather like a larger version of my niece India (photo on Flickr).
lunchtime was the mahi caught on day 4, sauteed in butter and served up with rice and broccoli with a spicy peanut sauce -- bravo, David! and this photo was taken in the afternoon, everyone relaxing a bit, the engine running (to charge the batteries) and so the autopilot took care of the steering for a while. Mouse is basking in the sunshine (as are my seaboots, they got rather wet in a squall the day before) and David's working on more fishing lures.
and the lures worked! we caught another mahi, a big one, right at the end of David & my's 6-9pm watch -- quickly filleted and sent to the freezer, and then another big clean-up of the blood-spattered cockpit.
by this time, David and I had decided that iPods were ESSENTIAL gear for nightwatches -- sometimes we'd sit talking for hours, but more often (especially when the breeze was up, as it was hard to be heard over the wind unless you shouted, not exactly good conditions for chatting) we each plug into our own headphones while steering -- a wonderful way of keeping ones-self awake and entertained through the dark night.
lunchtime was the mahi caught on day 4, sauteed in butter and served up with rice and broccoli with a spicy peanut sauce -- bravo, David! and this photo was taken in the afternoon, everyone relaxing a bit, the engine running (to charge the batteries) and so the autopilot took care of the steering for a while. Mouse is basking in the sunshine (as are my seaboots, they got rather wet in a squall the day before) and David's working on more fishing lures.
and the lures worked! we caught another mahi, a big one, right at the end of David & my's 6-9pm watch -- quickly filleted and sent to the freezer, and then another big clean-up of the blood-spattered cockpit.
by this time, David and I had decided that iPods were ESSENTIAL gear for nightwatches -- sometimes we'd sit talking for hours, but more often (especially when the breeze was up, as it was hard to be heard over the wind unless you shouted, not exactly good conditions for chatting) we each plug into our own headphones while steering -- a wonderful way of keeping ones-self awake and entertained through the dark night.
Thursday, June 28
day 4 - first fish!!
the only great excitement of day 4 was the arrival of our first fish!!! as you can see, he's a handsome green mahi (or dorado, or dolphinfish) who fell for one of the day-glo octopi David had trailing in the water behind us. he bit at dusk, just after D. and I had gone off watch -- but David got him up into the boat, and proceded to knock him out with a winch handle (we'd meant to bring some cheap vodka to pour on fishes' gills to kill them, but forgot it when we mostly bypassed bringing booze for ourselves) and neatly turn him into fillets.
the most hilarious thing is that all while this was happening, David's iPod was playing, as part of a random assortment of music, a ridiculously melodramatic tango -- which seemed completely over-the-top perfect to go along with the demise of the fish! we were all laughing so hard that by the time I managed to get below to pick up my camera that can make a video, the tango had ended -- but i made a little video anyway, accompanied by some different (and not quite so funny, but still overly romantic) music, while David tried to get the proper knife handed up to him -- see the video clip here:
http://www.vimeo.com/224810
and a bit more of filleting, plus commentary from Mouse and I (watching from a safe distance), here:
http://www.vimeo.com/224831
it was too late in the evening to actually EAT mr. fish (and David and I both needed to get to sleep, to get ready for our midnight watch), so he was wrapped up in saran wrap & tin foil and placed in the freezer, to await being turned into treats another day... we all pitched in to help clean up the cockpit of fish blood, washing everything clean, and then off to sleep!
oh, and I just realized I forgot to include the day 4 log in my previous post -- at noon PDT we were located at 27° 52' 5" N, 154° 42' 8" W -- that means that from day 3 noon to day 4 noon was our fastest 24-hour run, 187 nautical miles -- but still 1651 n.m. to travel to san francisco!
the most hilarious thing is that all while this was happening, David's iPod was playing, as part of a random assortment of music, a ridiculously melodramatic tango -- which seemed completely over-the-top perfect to go along with the demise of the fish! we were all laughing so hard that by the time I managed to get below to pick up my camera that can make a video, the tango had ended -- but i made a little video anyway, accompanied by some different (and not quite so funny, but still overly romantic) music, while David tried to get the proper knife handed up to him -- see the video clip here:
http://www.vimeo.com/224810
and a bit more of filleting, plus commentary from Mouse and I (watching from a safe distance), here:
http://www.vimeo.com/224831
it was too late in the evening to actually EAT mr. fish (and David and I both needed to get to sleep, to get ready for our midnight watch), so he was wrapped up in saran wrap & tin foil and placed in the freezer, to await being turned into treats another day... we all pitched in to help clean up the cockpit of fish blood, washing everything clean, and then off to sleep!
oh, and I just realized I forgot to include the day 4 log in my previous post -- at noon PDT we were located at 27° 52' 5" N, 154° 42' 8" W -- that means that from day 3 noon to day 4 noon was our fastest 24-hour run, 187 nautical miles -- but still 1651 n.m. to travel to san francisco!
day 4 - silversky
what a difference a few hours can make! after having my very bad night (see previous post), I think David and I got hit by a huge squall on our 6-9am watch, both completely soaked by heavy rain -- but the wind wasn't too bad, and the rainwater washed all the salt out of my hair, a welcome development -- and we both slept well after that, and things started to smooth out internally again.
none of us seem to remember any special foods made on day 4, although we must have eaten SOMEthing? I actually didn't write much of anything about it, although i took a bunch of photos of the late afternoon sky, like this one -- and made a small video clip, panning from the back of the boat around to the bow, so if you'd like to see what our horizons looked like, go here:
http://www.vimeo.com/224838
I think day 4 is also the day we saw two ships pass -- one in the afternoon, one much later at night -- both south of us, pretty far away, and heading west. we didn't see another ship (or any other vehicle, for that matter) for over a week. yep, it's a mighty big empty ocean out there!
none of us seem to remember any special foods made on day 4, although we must have eaten SOMEthing? I actually didn't write much of anything about it, although i took a bunch of photos of the late afternoon sky, like this one -- and made a small video clip, panning from the back of the boat around to the bow, so if you'd like to see what our horizons looked like, go here:
http://www.vimeo.com/224838
I think day 4 is also the day we saw two ships pass -- one in the afternoon, one much later at night -- both south of us, pretty far away, and heading west. we didn't see another ship (or any other vehicle, for that matter) for over a week. yep, it's a mighty big empty ocean out there!
day 3/day 4 - dark squall
the night watches between day 3 and day 4 were perhaps the hardest time on the journey for me -- David and I came out to our first watch at midnight to something like 25 knots of wind and biggish seas, and for some reason, my confidence utterly left me -- I had absolutely no idea what I was doing on the boat in the middle of the ocean, and suddenly the idea of getting behind the wheel and steering terrified me, particularly after having had the wheel yanked out of my hands by a squall our first night out -- fortunately David is a good enough friend that I could just tell him about this panic attack, rather than feel I had to hide it somehow, but poor guy had to steer our whole shift while I tried to get my head sorted out.
it didn't help that the interior of the boat made absolutely horrific noise whenever we were in rougher conditions -- the fiberglass and wood framing sounded like they were trying to rip themselves apart, and any time the boat came off a wave slightly wrong, it would slam down on the water with an incredible BANG. at times I would be below, lying in my bunk & utterly convinced that it was blowing 50 knot above, the sails were torn, and the boat was about to break in half -- not sure why the interior amplified the sound so much, but it was absolutely awful.
my best attempt at describing it later is, to imagine yourself as a small animal, like a mouse or a lizard, that's been put inside a shoebox -- then strapped onto one of those old amusement park rides, not a roller coaster but the kind that sort of lurches in different directions and randomly spins you around -- now imagine it's made of wood, so it's creaking and groaning wildly -- and every so often, someone picks up the shoebox and slams it on the floor, BAM bam BAM BAM!!! I have no idea how we slept through it, although we did, routinely.
so david steered our whole first watch, and we went back to sleep from 3-6 -- but I woke up at 6 out of a vivid nightmare, which is something I NEVER have (neither me nor my sister nor my mom ever seem to get nightmares, they're incredibly rare) -- I knew it was just a dream, but it had been so vivid and tense, I felt utterly shaken by it -- had to excuse myself before going onto watch, lock myself in the head, and just cry -- I felt so completely discombobulated. once outside in the cockpit, though, the winds had dropped back slightly so the seas weren't as rough as on our first watch -- and steering the boat actually helped me calm down, remember where I was, and regain the confidence that I can do this. and then we got to watch the sky change from black to blue to sunrise, which really is the best time of day on a boat.
so, a bad night, but it ended up ok. this photo was taken on day 4, but somehow it fits the mood of that night to me...
it didn't help that the interior of the boat made absolutely horrific noise whenever we were in rougher conditions -- the fiberglass and wood framing sounded like they were trying to rip themselves apart, and any time the boat came off a wave slightly wrong, it would slam down on the water with an incredible BANG. at times I would be below, lying in my bunk & utterly convinced that it was blowing 50 knot above, the sails were torn, and the boat was about to break in half -- not sure why the interior amplified the sound so much, but it was absolutely awful.
my best attempt at describing it later is, to imagine yourself as a small animal, like a mouse or a lizard, that's been put inside a shoebox -- then strapped onto one of those old amusement park rides, not a roller coaster but the kind that sort of lurches in different directions and randomly spins you around -- now imagine it's made of wood, so it's creaking and groaning wildly -- and every so often, someone picks up the shoebox and slams it on the floor, BAM bam BAM BAM!!! I have no idea how we slept through it, although we did, routinely.
so david steered our whole first watch, and we went back to sleep from 3-6 -- but I woke up at 6 out of a vivid nightmare, which is something I NEVER have (neither me nor my sister nor my mom ever seem to get nightmares, they're incredibly rare) -- I knew it was just a dream, but it had been so vivid and tense, I felt utterly shaken by it -- had to excuse myself before going onto watch, lock myself in the head, and just cry -- I felt so completely discombobulated. once outside in the cockpit, though, the winds had dropped back slightly so the seas weren't as rough as on our first watch -- and steering the boat actually helped me calm down, remember where I was, and regain the confidence that I can do this. and then we got to watch the sky change from black to blue to sunrise, which really is the best time of day on a boat.
so, a bad night, but it ended up ok. this photo was taken on day 4, but somehow it fits the mood of that night to me...
day 3 - trolling lines
sometime on our third day at sea, David set out some trolling lines for the fishes -- we'd spent at least an hour in a special fishing and tackle store in Kaneohe before we left, getting just the right rigs for trying to catch deep-water fishes off the back of a sailboat...
the lures were all day-glo or sparkly plastic octopi, so enticing! but on that first day, the only interest they inspired was an albatross who cruised by to check out the octopi, then flew off in disgust.
the lures were all day-glo or sparkly plastic octopi, so enticing! but on that first day, the only interest they inspired was an albatross who cruised by to check out the octopi, then flew off in disgust.
day 3
I actually didn't take any photos on day 3 (june 9), so this one from day 2 will have to stand in -- we continued to sail fast through mostly 20-knot breezes, dodging squalls as best we could (it always seemed to rain only on David and my's watch) -- noontime location was 24° 52' 5" N, 154° 42' 8" W, and we'd covered 158 nautical miles -- only 1828 n.m. to go to SF!!
but I was not feeling super-well this day -- in retrospect, i chalk it up to adjusting to our 3-hours-on, 3-off schedule, as well as a bit of caffeine withdrawal -- it was often too much of a hassle to boil water for tea, and the one time I made some on watch, I couldn't sleep for my three hours off afterwards, so tea started to seem like a bad idea. but, the combination of no caffeine and only sleeping in 2.5-hour bursts made for a cranky out-of-sorts me.
putting my earphones on and singing along with my iPod while steering on my afternoon watch helped me feel better, though -- just like being on a road trip and singing loud to the car stereo! and David made us all delicious pasta for dinner, fusili with kale, onion, and peas. Mouse (Liisa) told me later that he asked her to hold the pot of boiling water steady, so it wouldn't spill, and she was absolutely terrified it wouls pour all over her -- the adventures of working in the galley! but the meal was delicious.
one word about meals: our skipper Tim is a fish-eating vegetarian, and while he didn't mind other people eating meat, we didn't want to fuss with separate meals, so we hardly brought any meat on the trip, just a few cans of tuna fish (not necessary, it turned out) and a dry salali or two. similarly, Tim doesn't drink, so David, Mouse and I brought three 12-packs of Tecate (roughly one per night per person), and a bottle of wine to celebrate the halfway point, but that was it.
but I was not feeling super-well this day -- in retrospect, i chalk it up to adjusting to our 3-hours-on, 3-off schedule, as well as a bit of caffeine withdrawal -- it was often too much of a hassle to boil water for tea, and the one time I made some on watch, I couldn't sleep for my three hours off afterwards, so tea started to seem like a bad idea. but, the combination of no caffeine and only sleeping in 2.5-hour bursts made for a cranky out-of-sorts me.
putting my earphones on and singing along with my iPod while steering on my afternoon watch helped me feel better, though -- just like being on a road trip and singing loud to the car stereo! and David made us all delicious pasta for dinner, fusili with kale, onion, and peas. Mouse (Liisa) told me later that he asked her to hold the pot of boiling water steady, so it wouldn't spill, and she was absolutely terrified it wouls pour all over her -- the adventures of working in the galley! but the meal was delicious.
one word about meals: our skipper Tim is a fish-eating vegetarian, and while he didn't mind other people eating meat, we didn't want to fuss with separate meals, so we hardly brought any meat on the trip, just a few cans of tuna fish (not necessary, it turned out) and a dry salali or two. similarly, Tim doesn't drink, so David, Mouse and I brought three 12-packs of Tecate (roughly one per night per person), and a bottle of wine to celebrate the halfway point, but that was it.
day 2
day two (june 8) started off with fried-egg sandwiches with cheese, courtesy of David -- I'm not usually a big fan of fried eggs, but YUM, so tasty, and we were all craving protein after not eating much our first day at sea.
I didn't record many details from this day, I'm pretty sure the wind was mostly in the 20-knot range, and we made good progress -- at noon our location was 22ª 43' N, 156ª 38' W, and we'd traveled roughly 125 nautical miles in a straight line from our starting point, but of course we'd actually sailed around the island of Oahu, not through it, so our actual distance traveled was farther than that.
spent much of the day learning to live with the constant heel on starboard tack, which we'd stay on for the whole first week of the trip -- and I discovered that while I wasn't feeling seasick at all (none of us got sick the entire trip), I couldn't read or focus on anything detailed while down below, or I'd start feeling lousy. this meant I wasn't terribly helpful in the galley -- but I tried to make up for it by steering extra.
re: steering -- the boat has an autopilot, but it slurps power from the batteries at an enormous rate, which can only be recharged by running the engine -- and while we ran it a bit each day to charge 'em up, we were playing it conservative with diesel, since we didn't have enough to motor the whole trip, & our navigation instruments (among other things) were dependent on us having power -- so we used the engine as little as possible during the first part of the trip, only running it to recharge the batteries or if the wind got too light to sail with any decent speed.
and nightwatch (midnight to 3am) on day 2 was just brilliant -- David napped on the low side of the cockpit while I was steering, and we were passing under the most gorgeously black sky with zillions of stars -- so I could easily see the small dark puffs of cloud (that might or might not be squalls) against the sparkly sky -- and I got into such a wonderful groove of optimizing our course and speed, so that I felt like I was racing those clouds, picking our best path between them, and such satisfaction when their edges passed us by, looming darkly overhead but not causing us any trouble -- it reminded me of driving through Monument Valley in Utah, such huge shapes hovering high above our heads but letting us pass.
there were lots of shooting stars that night too -- somehow they felt like friends cheering us on as we sailed through the dark ocean night.
I didn't record many details from this day, I'm pretty sure the wind was mostly in the 20-knot range, and we made good progress -- at noon our location was 22ª 43' N, 156ª 38' W, and we'd traveled roughly 125 nautical miles in a straight line from our starting point, but of course we'd actually sailed around the island of Oahu, not through it, so our actual distance traveled was farther than that.
spent much of the day learning to live with the constant heel on starboard tack, which we'd stay on for the whole first week of the trip -- and I discovered that while I wasn't feeling seasick at all (none of us got sick the entire trip), I couldn't read or focus on anything detailed while down below, or I'd start feeling lousy. this meant I wasn't terribly helpful in the galley -- but I tried to make up for it by steering extra.
re: steering -- the boat has an autopilot, but it slurps power from the batteries at an enormous rate, which can only be recharged by running the engine -- and while we ran it a bit each day to charge 'em up, we were playing it conservative with diesel, since we didn't have enough to motor the whole trip, & our navigation instruments (among other things) were dependent on us having power -- so we used the engine as little as possible during the first part of the trip, only running it to recharge the batteries or if the wind got too light to sail with any decent speed.
and nightwatch (midnight to 3am) on day 2 was just brilliant -- David napped on the low side of the cockpit while I was steering, and we were passing under the most gorgeously black sky with zillions of stars -- so I could easily see the small dark puffs of cloud (that might or might not be squalls) against the sparkly sky -- and I got into such a wonderful groove of optimizing our course and speed, so that I felt like I was racing those clouds, picking our best path between them, and such satisfaction when their edges passed us by, looming darkly overhead but not causing us any trouble -- it reminded me of driving through Monument Valley in Utah, such huge shapes hovering high above our heads but letting us pass.
there were lots of shooting stars that night too -- somehow they felt like friends cheering us on as we sailed through the dark ocean night.
day 1/day 2 - squall
one of the things I had to learn right away was how best to steer around squalls -- in the bay area, we simply don't get squalls, or at least extremely rarely, so I'd never encountered one from a boat before!
it was amazing the difference in wind between clear sky and squall -- i got us too close to one our first night out and it literally pulled the wheel out of my hands, forcing us into a tack (David was able to get the boat back on course, since he's stronger than me, but not before we got some lovely rain in the face) -- but often we could guage how fast & which direction the cloud was moving and either cross in front of it or pass behind it.
it was amazing the difference in wind between clear sky and squall -- i got us too close to one our first night out and it literally pulled the wheel out of my hands, forcing us into a tack (David was able to get the boat back on course, since he's stronger than me, but not before we got some lovely rain in the face) -- but often we could guage how fast & which direction the cloud was moving and either cross in front of it or pass behind it.
hawaii in the distance
these tiny tidbits of land that are the hawaiian islands gradually disappeared over the horizon as we sailed through our first afternoon and evening -- David somehow made us fresh homemade miso soup on that first night (despite 15-20 kts of breeze and not exactly flat seas), hot and simple and delicious, and we settled into a watch schedule that would stick for the entire trip: we did watches in girl-boy pairs (me and David, Liisa and Tim), rotating every three hours -- so David and I were on from midnight-3am, 6-9am, 12-3pm, and 6-9pm, taking turns steering the boat & generally looking out for (essentially nonexistent) ships.
we also decided on this first day not to fuss with time zone changes, so we simply set out clocks to pacific daylight time, so that we'd be in the right zone once we arrive in SF. since hawaii is 3 hours behind SF, our clocks didn't "match" the progression of the sun while we were still in lower latitudes -- and David and I turned out to have the best possible watch schedule, as we missed the hottest part of the day (3-6pm in the lower latitudes) and we got the best watch of all, when you transition from dark night to sunrise (6-9am). smarties, us!
we also decided on this first day not to fuss with time zone changes, so we simply set out clocks to pacific daylight time, so that we'd be in the right zone once we arrive in SF. since hawaii is 3 hours behind SF, our clocks didn't "match" the progression of the sun while we were still in lower latitudes -- and David and I turned out to have the best possible watch schedule, as we missed the hottest part of the day (3-6pm in the lower latitudes) and we got the best watch of all, when you transition from dark night to sunrise (6-9am). smarties, us!
Wednesday, June 27
day 1 -- the mast
so here's the top of Siderno's mast, with the mainsail reefed (hence not reaching all the way to the top) -- and the windex is showing that we're sailing close-hauled to the wind, heading north on starboard tack...
the mast was the single biggest problem with the boat -- it's set up for an in-mast furling main, and although this is a normal main (raised and lowered on sliders, rather than furled up inside the mast), all the mechanisms for the furler cause the mast to weigh two or three times more than a regular mast -- even more so because there was a storm trisail furled inside the mast in case of big winds. so we had something like 1000 pounds *high up* above the boat's center of gravity -- which acted something like a pendulum, causing the boat to sway from side to side far more than usual, and particularly it wanted to swing up into the wind -- which made steering harder, always having to counteract that motion of the boat to spin up.
I think it's safe to say that none of us will ever sail on a boat with in-mast furling again -- incredibly uncomfortable and unweildy.
the mast was the single biggest problem with the boat -- it's set up for an in-mast furling main, and although this is a normal main (raised and lowered on sliders, rather than furled up inside the mast), all the mechanisms for the furler cause the mast to weigh two or three times more than a regular mast -- even more so because there was a storm trisail furled inside the mast in case of big winds. so we had something like 1000 pounds *high up* above the boat's center of gravity -- which acted something like a pendulum, causing the boat to sway from side to side far more than usual, and particularly it wanted to swing up into the wind -- which made steering harder, always having to counteract that motion of the boat to spin up.
I think it's safe to say that none of us will ever sail on a boat with in-mast furling again -- incredibly uncomfortable and unweildy.
the crew!!
so here we all are: upper left is Tim, our captain -- he does deliveries and various boat repair work for a living, but this was only his fourth or fifth pacific crossing from hawaii -- a most excellent skipper!! across from him is Liisa, otherwise known as Mouse (she poked her head out of a porthole one day, & David gave her the nickname since she looked just like a little mouse) -- she lives aboard a boat in the same marina Siderno was tied up at in Pearl Harbor, and was a fantastic last-minute addition to our crew. Lower left is David, my watch-mate for the entire trip, virtually attached at the hip for everything except sleeping -- but he's also a former chef, so he organized & cooked almost all our food (I would steer while he was below in the galley). and finally there's me, the official photographer for the trip.
All of us except Liisa actually live alone in our ordinary lives -- so adapting to being in such close quarters with three other people took a bit of effort! but all of us except David also live aboard boats, and we ALL do tons of sailing, so we knew what to expect, and generally all got along fantastically well through the whole two weeks.
day 1 - out in the Molokai Channel
once we left Pearl Harbor, it was sails up and away!! the Molokai Channel is almost always windy (all those pacific breezes suddenly being funneled between two islands), so we put a reef in the main right from the get-go -- and as you can see, we're heeled over already, which will be the condition of our lives for most of the next two weeks.
I think we all (except maybe not Tim?) had taken some anti-seasickness pills for our first day out, so we were somewhat groggy -- David made us all cheese-tomato-and-cucumber sandwiches, which we munched while sailing past Honolulu, Waikiki, and Diamond Head on port tack -- once we got farther out up the Channel, we tacked onto starboard (which we then stayed on for a week). perfectly gorgeous day, other than a bit choppy in the Channel!
I think we all (except maybe not Tim?) had taken some anti-seasickness pills for our first day out, so we were somewhat groggy -- David made us all cheese-tomato-and-cucumber sandwiches, which we munched while sailing past Honolulu, Waikiki, and Diamond Head on port tack -- once we got farther out up the Channel, we tacked onto starboard (which we then stayed on for a week). perfectly gorgeous day, other than a bit choppy in the Channel!
day 1 - salon looking aft
another view of the boat's salon, looking aft from the foreward cabin -- David is sitting in the nav station checking his email, the aft cabin is behind him, and the galley is off to the left.
the guys usually slept in the aft cabin, while Liisa and I preferred to sleep on the settees in the salon, on whichever one happened to be the low side of the boat at that time.
and one brilliant innovation on the boat: the owner had hung those shoe-pocket things all over the boat (see one underneath the stairs, with loads of flashlights in the pockets) -- they were fantastic for holding small things, like sunscreen, cameras, iPods, sunglasses, sailing gloves, hats, ETC. as Liisa said on day 2, "shoe pockets rock!!"
the guys usually slept in the aft cabin, while Liisa and I preferred to sleep on the settees in the salon, on whichever one happened to be the low side of the boat at that time.
and one brilliant innovation on the boat: the owner had hung those shoe-pocket things all over the boat (see one underneath the stairs, with loads of flashlights in the pockets) -- they were fantastic for holding small things, like sunscreen, cameras, iPods, sunglasses, sailing gloves, hats, ETC. as Liisa said on day 2, "shoe pockets rock!!"
day 1 - siderno interior
so here's the view of our home for two weeks at sea, a Beneteau 473 called Siderno -- I'm sitting on the companionway steps looking forward, and this was actually taken before we loaded all the groceries and etc. on board.
she's very pretty inside, and would be great if you were living aboard or sitting in a harbor for long stretches -- but for an upwind voyage, when the boat is heeled over to one side or another almost all the time, this boat has an absolutely terrible design -- there are no handholds in this huge salon, and a lot of space to cross... also little things like having a side-opening fridge (although a top-opening freezer) -- so any time we opened the fridge on starboard tack (our entire first week), everything would fall out on top of you -- and the stove had three burners, but only a single wire potholder, and no lip around the edge, so we couldn't use more than one burner at a time unless the boat was sailing flat, otherwise the pots woudl fall off. AND the water intakes for the heads were located toward the outside of the hull, rather than close to centerline, so that one one tack or the other, the intake would be out of the water and the toilets wouldn't function. thank goodness there were two and on opposite sides of the boat!
so -- I learned to not love the boat at all (for other reasons as well as interior design) -- but she did look nice at the start!
she's very pretty inside, and would be great if you were living aboard or sitting in a harbor for long stretches -- but for an upwind voyage, when the boat is heeled over to one side or another almost all the time, this boat has an absolutely terrible design -- there are no handholds in this huge salon, and a lot of space to cross... also little things like having a side-opening fridge (although a top-opening freezer) -- so any time we opened the fridge on starboard tack (our entire first week), everything would fall out on top of you -- and the stove had three burners, but only a single wire potholder, and no lip around the edge, so we couldn't use more than one burner at a time unless the boat was sailing flat, otherwise the pots woudl fall off. AND the water intakes for the heads were located toward the outside of the hull, rather than close to centerline, so that one one tack or the other, the intake would be out of the water and the toilets wouldn't function. thank goodness there were two and on opposite sides of the boat!
so -- I learned to not love the boat at all (for other reasons as well as interior design) -- but she did look nice at the start!
day 1 - heading out
And here were are, heading out of Pearl Harbor at last.
I just realized that I should provide some key background to this voyage, which chronicles the delivery of s/v Siderno, a Beneteau 473, from Pearl Harbor on Oahu back to San Francisco. Siderno competed in last year's Pacific Cup (race from SF to Hawaii), coming in second in her division, and has then spent a year hanging out in Hawaii -- but now it's time to come home.
I flew to Hawaii on tuesday June 5. along with fellow crew David Parker, and we were met by our skipper Tim Murison -- and spent the next day & half buying provisions and fuel and aloha shirts, and generally getting ready for departure -- as well as doing a brief bit of touring around the island. if anyone is interested in seeing my hawaii photos, they can be found here on Flickr (along with rest of the photos from this trip):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lawatt/sets/72157600319536162/
but I'll keep this blog focused on the actual sailing trip.
I just realized that I should provide some key background to this voyage, which chronicles the delivery of s/v Siderno, a Beneteau 473, from Pearl Harbor on Oahu back to San Francisco. Siderno competed in last year's Pacific Cup (race from SF to Hawaii), coming in second in her division, and has then spent a year hanging out in Hawaii -- but now it's time to come home.
I flew to Hawaii on tuesday June 5. along with fellow crew David Parker, and we were met by our skipper Tim Murison -- and spent the next day & half buying provisions and fuel and aloha shirts, and generally getting ready for departure -- as well as doing a brief bit of touring around the island. if anyone is interested in seeing my hawaii photos, they can be found here on Flickr (along with rest of the photos from this trip):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lawatt/sets/72157600319536162/
but I'll keep this blog focused on the actual sailing trip.
day 1 - double rainbow!!
the one good thing about being delayed by the Navy: we were treated to this lovely double rainbow across Pearl Harbor, one of the brightest I've ever seen!
day 1 - casting off
casting off the lines, we're finally on our way!!!
we'd intended to leave early in the morning, but had to check in with the Navy first, since they control Pearl Harbor -- when Tim called them to let them know we were planning to sail out, they said, "OK, when will you be back?" Tim informed them that we would not be returning -- and they immediately said, "oh no, you can't do that -- you need a permit to leave permenantly."
BUT we had an ace up our sleeve -- Siderno belongs to the brother of the former Admiral of Pearl Harbor, who only retired a few years ago -- so it was just a question of finding the right person to name-drop with. Still, it took us something like three hours of calls and etc. before "Admiral Vitale's brother's boat would like to leave!" had any resonance -- but once we got the right person, we got clearance about two minutes later.
and so off we go!!!
we'd intended to leave early in the morning, but had to check in with the Navy first, since they control Pearl Harbor -- when Tim called them to let them know we were planning to sail out, they said, "OK, when will you be back?" Tim informed them that we would not be returning -- and they immediately said, "oh no, you can't do that -- you need a permit to leave permenantly."
BUT we had an ace up our sleeve -- Siderno belongs to the brother of the former Admiral of Pearl Harbor, who only retired a few years ago -- so it was just a question of finding the right person to name-drop with. Still, it took us something like three hours of calls and etc. before "Admiral Vitale's brother's boat would like to leave!" had any resonance -- but once we got the right person, we got clearance about two minutes later.
and so off we go!!!
Tuesday, June 26
attempts at a travelogue
so I'm hoping to figure out how best to use this blog to post our adventures from sailing across the ocean, from hawaii to san francisco -- but this blog and Flickr don't seem to be talking to each other any more. hmmm....
...aha, figured it out! ok, we're full steam ahead...
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