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3/6/2006 1107 Zulu (3/6/06 2307 NZ time and 3/6/06 0707 ATL time)
Location: 2636’ S 17627’ E Since the boat is on Zulu time I figured my journal should be as well.
I started writing this in my physical journal and then figured I would have to retype into a computer for the blog so we’ll see if this works. As long as I don’t get seasick.
So tonight is Saturday night, and I have 2 hours to go of my watch. I can’t believe its Sat night. That makes this my 5th night at sea. I spent most of today thinking it was only my 4th night, but something didn’t seem right. So finally I looked at my watch and it said it was Saturday. To confirm I went through the dinners we have had since I went shopping.
Tonight is a beautiful night; the quarter moon is out… waxing moon I think. It’s going from New to Full. We left on Tuesday, and the new moon was last Saturday. I can’t decide if I like the moon or not for sailing. Without it the stars are nice, but it sure can get dark. I think I like
the moon, as long as I get some dark time for stargazing. My first night on watch the moon set just after my watch. Now I’ve been on watch for 3 hours and I still have like another 30 minutes before it sets.
Yes, our night watches are 5 hours each. Seems long, but its really nice, because you get 5 hours of sleep as well. Which means IF you don’t get a nap (you almost always do) during the day, you’ve at least had some real sleep. During the day you are on a 3-hour and 4 hour watch.
The first 2 nights were pretty uneventful. Light winds, mostly I think. See the paragraph above, I’m kind of losing my days here and there. I remember just trying to sleep as much as possible and get in the rhythm. I also didn’t want to get seasick so I wasn’t really pushing anything too much. Did chum the waters once. That was after spending a couple hours on the fore deck changing sails and getting things battened down.
Speaking of battening down, it’s a good thing we did. We went through a front, which was no fun.
I think the initial prognosis was that we would have NE winds for like 18-24 hours… I’m not really sure. What we got was almost 48 hours of NE winds in the 25-35 knot range. I believe that classifies as a gale. It started Thursday night, really with my night watch. I had mostly 25-knot winds, no big deal, just a little bouncy. Of course I woke in the morning to 30-35 knot winds and spray all over the cockpit. There were some big waves out there. The new weather report was that we still had 18-24 more hours before we were through. The day was pretty miserable. If not on watch, sleep if you could. When on watch, I sat in the cockpit huddled down trying to stay dry.
Last nights watch, kicked my ass. The winds seemed to be abating but the seas were still big. At one point something had knocked part of our man overboard bag into the water. So I retrieved that it was lying in the cockpit. Did I mention it was pissing rain? But the winds were abating. The dropped from 27 to about 13 knots or so during my watch. Unfortunately
they also moved out of the SE instead of NW as expected. I was frustrated, I couldn’t make the boat sail with this change, it should have sailed fine, but it wouldn’t. Paul just said to start the engine, we would motor until the winds stopped moving around and being fickle. As we were motoring the winds seemed to pick up again to about 23 knots. So I tried to sail again, no luck.
Then came my “Coming to Jesus” moment. I stepped into the cabin to check something… our course on the GPS I think, when there was a huge bang. No big deal, just ANOTHER wave slapping the hull of the boat and getting the whole deck wet. But I looked outside and saw the MOB light flashing. SHIT, it just washed the whole MOB overboard. So I ran up to the cockpit to try and save that. The first thing I saw was 6” of water in the cockpit. After saving the MOB, I looked around. The spray guard had been ripped, grommets torn out. The rescue collar was off the rail, not sure why. I just sat against the cabin wall and stared in wonder. I
was scared, not really the right word, shook up is better. What if I had been in the cockpit? Logic and reason told me, I would have been all right, I would have been clipped in. But that didn’t matter right now. More importantly, what if I had been against the back rail fixing the MOB. And here I was motoring in 23 knots of wind. I immediately decided to stop motoring, and sail, even if at only 2-3 knots. Then I went about trying to repair the damage. I later found that the wave had bent the stantion (1 ¼” stainless steel pole) on the deck. It was at this point that I woke Paul to show him the damage. I was exhausted 1.5 hours later when my watch finally ended.
Today I woke to a beautiful day. The winds were still 25 knots, but now from the NW and the seas weren’t as bad. Plus the sun was out. As the day progressed the winds and seas abated even more. It was a great day for sailing; I even broke open my book and read some for the first time since Opua. As far as I know nobody took any real damage in the winds, though some had a worse time than we did. Who knows it might stay this calm for the rest of the journey and it might not.
I guess the other thing I’ve really noticed has been the increase in temperature. The first couple nights out the dress code was polypro top and bottom, T-shirt, pants, fleece, heavy duty raincoat, heavy duty rainpants, wool socks and gum boots. Yesterday, the cockpit was so wet that Paul and I actually started sharing the boats one pair of gumboots, just to keep your feet dry. But even in yesterday’s mess, it was warmer. The beanie was gone, as was the fleece top and normal pants. I still had the thermals on. On tonight’s watch, I’m just in pants, T-shirt, polypro top and fleece top, with the pit zips unzipped. Oh yeah and barefoot. We are getting closer to the tropics.
4/6/06 1101Z
Location: 2445’S 17814’E
Course: 49 True - towards Minerva Reef. Not exactly headed towards Fiji at the moment. The weather in these parts can be very strange, and this passage is one complete example of that.
Last week, Saturday to be specific, everyone was sitting around Opua saying, “Well it doesn’t look like we are leaving on Sunday or Monday, maybe we’ll get a window come Thursday or Friday.” That same feeling was true even into Sunday afternoon. But by Sunday night, the weather picture in the Tasman Sea and Australia had changed. Now Lily from Amadis and Robert from Evelyan Roberts were planning to leave on Monday. Rumor had it that Wind Rose and Street Legal were headed out on Tuesday. We woke up Monday morning and decided to leave on Monday or Tuesday as soon as we were ready.
We left Opua expecting light winds, then one day of winds from the NE as we passed through the front. After that light westerly winds and clear skies for a peaceful sail into Fiji. Well the front took 2 days to cross and blew a gale. After crossing the front the winds still stayed at 15-25 knots, from the N to NW. Yesterday was grand, though the winds never did move out of the West, so we kept getting more and more east. Today the winds just stayed up at 20-25 knots most of the day and from the NNW, continuing to push us more East. It could be worse of course. Street Legal, about 60 nautical miles to our SW got caught in another gale this afternoon as they had to pass through another frontal boundary. Not sure if we’ll catch that same boundary or not.
Anyway, we’ll keep trying to turn to the North. The weather forcasts keep projecting light winds from the West. We’ll see. Minerva Reef is supposed to be a really cool place to visit. Unfortunately, its 400 miles out of our way.
6/6/6 0109Z
Location: 2121’S 17823’E I was too busy on watch last night to make an entry. Not that it was a really busy watch, no ships, no storms, and only 1 sail change at the end of it. But we had light winds on our stern. In order to improve our angle on the wind and go more directly downwind, we were rigged “wing to wing.” This means we have the headsail (genoa) on one side of the boat and the mainsail on the other, like a wing on either side. The problem is if you backfill the mainsail, it can really cause major problems. As I mentioned the wind was pretty light last night, around 10 knots, and shifting around a bit. So you had to at least be alert in the cockpit to make minor corrections to the autopilot.
The light winds were the worst part of the night, sort of. We had light winds behind us, but the seas were on our beam. The sea swell was pretty small, but it was enough. Since we didn’t have much speed going forward we tended to just “wallow” over the waves. The boat would then rock from side to side and we would keep going. I told Paul when my watch was finished that I now know what a weeble wabble feels like..
Speaking of light winds, I’ve come to the conclusion that sailers and wind are like kayakers with water. We want it, but just enough and not too much. For days in the gales, everyone dreamed of lighter winds. Well we have them now and everyone is motoring because the winds are too light. Just be careful what you wish for I guess.
Yesterday I showered and shaved for the first time since starting the passage. That was a strange feeling. In the bad weather you didn’t really notice that you hadn’t done any of that. But once it got nice, the shave felt really good. It is nice to have the option to shower though. Dreamweaver is a pretty “flash” boat compared to many. I mean we have a HOT shower, refrigeration, freezer, water maker, AC, and a heater. All things that are often considered luxuries on boats. I’m not complaining.
7/6/6 0210Z
Location: 1928’S 17847’E LAND HO!!! We saw land for the first time just about an hour or so ago. It’s still pretty far away and not where we have to go first, but its Fiji. We should arrive in Suva tomorrow morning, local time or at around 7/6/6 2200Z. We’ve actually slowed down so that we don’t arrive in the middle of the night. YAY! We have just one more night of watches.
We just started day 9 of the passage. I had to count so I thought I would write it down because I was tired of counting meals to figure out which day this was. It looks like the passage will take a full 9 days, and that covers just over 1000nm. For anyone that is curious 1 nautical mile equals 1 minute of latitude or longitude. So there are 60 nautical miles to a degree of latitude or longitude.
7/6/6 1027Z
Location: 1854’S 17845’E Since I’ve started doing a sort of day by day journal for this passage, I thought I might do an entry based on the typical day during passage.
(All times are listed as local time for this entry)
6AM - my day starts as I’m awakened to start my morning watch. Paul goes to bed.
6AM-7AM - watch the sunrise or day break. Depends on weather
7AM-9AM - Continue morning watch. Paul usually wakes up again around 8AM. At 8:30 AM is the morning net. It’s a radio net, participated in by people on this passage or going to Tonga. Its really informal and a way to chat. It also serves as a way to make sure everyone is all right. Most of the time it just involved giving your position and weather and then some idle chit chat
9AM-12PM - Paul’s watch. But first we have to have breakfast. What we have depends on weather and our moods. The first part of the passage it was always cereal. The last three days we’ve been trying to get rid of all our eggs because we found out we can’t take them into Fiji. So we’ve had scrambled eggs, french toast, and pancakes.
Sometime between 10-11AM I go take my morning nap.
12-4PM - my afternoon watch. Not really sure what happens here. At 3:30 there is an afternoon net. I guess it depends on weather what I do during this watch
4PM-8PM - Paul’s watch. Around 4ish I usually start making dinner. We eat somewhere between 4 and 5PM. Then sit around and watch the sunset which happens about 5-6PM. After that I go take my afternoon/evening nap.
8PM-1AM - My big night watch. This is the one you really want to try and stretch things out for to stay awake. When the weather is nice, I try and do my physical therapy and other exercises in the cockpit. Though don’t try Yoga. It’s hard enough to balance on the boat as is, without trying to stand on one foot.
1AM-6AM - Paul’s watch. I sleep.
Then rinse, and repeat.
What happens, on and off watch is very weather dependent. During your watch you do all of this and keep an eye on the boat. Mostly you are watching for other boats. You also make sure the boat is sailing properly and going the right direction. Most of the time this doesn’t take much work. But when the wind is shifting, for me anyway, it can take some time and work. Paul is much better at adjusting the sails and getting the boat going the way he wants to. I just have to keep working at that part of it. At night you can really chew up hours watching lights, especially if the lights belong to another boat. You will watch the lights for over an hour, even after you’ve determined that it doesn’t pose a threat to you. It gives you something to focus your energy on, I guess.
One the weather is nice; you are much more active, well relatively. I read, type this journal, sit and stare at the ocean, watch the stars and clouds, and the exercises. During the day, sometimes we do minor repairs or other boat maintenance.
When the weather is not so good. Well off watch, I just tried to go to bed as soon as I could. I think it was for lack of anything else to do and I was more tired. Since the ride is rougher I probably didn’t sleep was well. On watch, well I didn’t start reading until I started righting this journal, on like day 5. First you put on your wet weather gear. (Sorry I don’t have a picture of this wet weather gear. I forgot or something. But I’ll describe the picture for you. PVC overall rain pants, and thick PVC raincoat. They are very heavy duty and warm. I almost felt like a Maine fisherman. And don’t forget the gum boots, fishing boots). Then it’s up into the cockpit. For me, I just sat up there and watched the sea, clouds, and wind. I can’t remember what all I did. I know I didn’t spend much time inside. Going in and out tended to track water into the boat. I also didn’t feel that good just sitting down below during the rougher seas. So I just sat huddled up. It really wasn’t so bad though. I did get some pictures of the sea, which I’ll share.
Of course no matter what the weather, there is always music to listen to.
7/6/6 ~2230Z
Location: 1808’S 17825’E Suva Quarantine Anchorage Yup, the hook is dropped in Fiji. Paul has gone in to clear customs. We’ve made it.
I don't know if I'll keep this kind of journal for passage in the future.
If you are interested in knowing Dreamweaver's location check out this website
www.sailingadream.com Paul tries to send out position reports daily or close to that.
Oh yeah, once again, if you get multiple emails let me know.
thanks
more pics of the passage
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Britmale
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A life on the ocean wave...........
.......is better than going to sea! Well thats what my old Grandad used to sing to me. Great reading Mike, I was once a merchant seaman long ago and met many yachtsmen in various ports on my travels, I loved it. Would'nt mind giving it a go myself after reading your account. So again, great TR's, keep em comin and hang on to your MOB thing! May the sails on your watch fill with pride. Dave