Arrival part 2

So I made it...!

When I left Mexico, I was trucking along for the first 24 hours at a nice pace and managed to get out into the blue water the next morning. It was a nice surprise to see beautiful blue water under the keel in the morning. I made 107 miles in that 24 hour period. So I started at noon, and all my “days” are noon to noon. Unfortunately, the wind then calmed down to nothing and I tried to motor into the rolling swells to make some distance.  I motored for 6 hours and since there is an exhaust leak in the engine, I got very very sick and had a terrible headache and ended up throwing up a day later. The winds stayed light for a long time and I didn't make 100 miles for the next 9 days, averaging about 70 for that period. So I got behind. I also stopped at Isla San Benedicto, which was a fantastic stop, and I should have spent more time there. The island is a volcano that blew up in the 50s or something, and is very much a barren wasteland. When I got in and anchored, I packed up my cameras and got in the kayak to go to the shore. 

I could hear the cannon fire of the surf making war on the beach and paddled straight into the fray, though with much apprehension. I managed to surf in without getting soaked and then jumped onto the black sand beach and ran the kayak up out of the waves. The beach was like soil, almost, soft and giving, but large particles of ash. I liked it. And black like the heart of the mountain. Now I was standing on an island which nobody else was on, desolate and barren and trapped by the shocking and awe of surf upon the sand. I wanted to climb, but the fine ash was too slippery and steep to go up, so I wandered around the base of the volcano, and I found a baby albatross (see last post for pictures) and many Masked Boobies.

  I left San Benedicto in the afternoon after about 4 hours and sailed on into the growing dark, but the wind was very light and I was pointing nearly due south and going very slowly. That is the unfortunate thing about this area, the dead zone between the trades and Mexico. Sometimes there is a system that pushes the wind east into this area, but sometimes it is devoid of the motion and only the loco are to be found looking for locomotion.

But the water is so blue!

It took 4 days to get to San Benedicto, and another 5 to get the further 200 miles to Isla Clarion. I went very far south and then had to tack back to get to the island. All my landfalls were destined to occur at night, and I ended up waiting out at sea until dawn, usually waiting 10 hours or more, which slowed me down substantially.

is worth the wait, however. It is very much like Santa Catalina or Santa Cruz island in the Channel islands of California. There are some grasses and many scrub kind of plants, but few trees.

The island is like a potato pointing east to west and the trade wind comes from the north, so it comes over the island and accelerates down the back side.

  The island is shaped like a wing, also, so the north side is steep cliffs and the south side is a smooth slope down to the beach. There is a Mexican Navy base there, and they were very friendly to me as I arrived and when I came to the beach they walked down to talk.

  I was worried they would get me in trouble for not having a pass or permissions to go to the island, but I asked them if it would be all right if I could walk around and they gave me 2 hours. I saw a wren that is an endemic species and a dove that was interesting, and also an albatross flew by and I saw the black wings and back with white head and tail, I think a Laysan.

I'd like to go back to Clarion, and maybe check out a few other anchorages, out of sight of the Navy, and do more diving. Since I was alone, I was reluctant to get in for a super long time, but I went in for a short dip

. The water clarity is astounding, probably 80 ft of visibility, maybe more. There are many fishes that live on the reefs there and not many other places. After the short visit of about 4 hours I hauled the anchor once more and set off for the long haul west. From Clarion, Hawaii is due west, basically, but the shortest distance is to do a “great circle” route which actually points a little north. It think the bearing was 179. The winds came from the north, and I re-set my clock to Hawaii time and took off swiftly.

There is a rock that looks like King Kong as you leave and he was shaking his giant gorilla fist at me in a salute as I passed. My speed for the next 24 hours was great, and I made 143 miles, the best of the whole trip. Beam reaching with a slight current suits Altair very nicely. The waves began to get larger and larger as I pressed further west, but the trouble for me happened when, after about 8 days, the winds shifted enough to make me put away the main. I was now going downwind, and the boat has no roll stabilizer when going downwind. Previously, when coming down the west coast, it was annoying, but since the waves only came from behind and a few other directions, not too bad. Here it was tragic. Altair would roll so fast I would get thrown around the cabin, and sometimes while surfing down a wave it would cause the boat to turn suddenly and roll quite far over. This motion was very bad for my health and I threw up a few times, which I don't like at all. I thought I'd get seasick once and then be done, but my finely tuned ears, it seems, have to get used to all the possibilities, and each new condition requires a gastronomic sacrifice. Many things were breaking at this time, the boat was getting tired, as was I, and as the trade wind swell picked up to near 10 ft waves, they began breaking with enough force to throw a pile of spray into the cockpit. A few times the water was enough to breach the companionway door and I took a few gallons of water into the cabin. It is unfortunate that my ipod and the computer charging stuff was underneath this onslaught, and the ipod is wounded badly and the computer is another story. At this point, it became unusable because I couldn't charge it. The sea state was bad enough that I couldn't use the computer anyways, since I would get sick and throw up (this was tested) so I spent the last 5 days (it was 20 from Clarion to Hilo) listening to Harry Potter on the ipod and either trying to stand in the cockpit (impossible without hand support) or lying on the bunk with my eyes closed.

Finally I arrived. The last day (I had hoped) the current turned against me and I didn't make the distance to arrive before sunset, so I dropped sail and put the tire in the water behind me to slow my progress and drifted (or heaved) on the waves. I made about 10 miles that night and at sunrise was about 20 miles to go. The trade wind was light, but steady until about 10 miles, and then the mountain effect from the island turned the wind into my face, so I turned on the motor. After about 10 minutes I could see clouds of black smoke wafting around inside the cabin and I thought maybe I should reconsider the use of the motor, and when I turned it off the boat lunged and jerked around in the still air. The large swell was rebounding from the shoreline and made a terrible sea state. Finally a cloud came over and through a small rainstorm I managed to sail to the breakwater entrance and into calmer waters. It took me about an hour to make the 2 miles to the anchorage, and then I called around to figure out the number for customs, and discovered I was supposed to go to another spot, so I picked up the hook and sailed past this large cruise boat and through a very narrow (100 ft across maybe) channel to where the customs dock is. I am now anchored back at the spot I first stopped, amongst friendly neighbors.

The last few days I have been working on fixing the things that broke on this trip. LaFawnda worked fantastically, steering the boat for nearly the whole time. I hand steered about 6 hours for the entire trip, mostly coming into harbors and a little bit on the “last day” to try to make speed. There was a leak in the mounting system for LaFawnda. She has wet feet. When I drilled the holes for the frame that holds the rudder on, I put them above the waterline, but when moving above hull speed the back of the boat is pushed underwater. You can see it in the videos, in the view from the stern. When moving fast the flat transom is visible underwater, and when moving slowly it is not. Anyways, the holes, when submerged, leaked. They leaked a lot, in fact. I think I pumped about 500 gallons of water during the trip. Every 4 or 6 hours the entire bilge was full when moving fast.

Another problem is the engine, but I found that it is a simple (I think) fix. The exhaust pipe is made of sections and they screw together, but the design is such that they have to be loose. They wobbled enough this time to make the loose connection nearly separate, so there is a big leak. I will try to seal it up soon, but since I used the engine all of 11 hours for this trip, I'm not too worried about it just yet. I will, however, need the engine when I get to Alaska.

LaFawnda also had some trouble with her cables. The spectra fishing line ones worked great for most of the trip, but the finally wore through and when I put stainless steel cable in, it broke as well. Actually it broke about 10 times, so I was fixing it quite often. I am happy that it is easy to fix, despite being thrown around like an abused puppet.

The largest problem when I arrived, however, was the computer. I tried to figure out a way to connect to the charging system. I did some surgery on the corner of the plastic case where the charging plug connects, but I couldn't get to it, so I went and got a new plug and carefully figured out the positive and negative sides for it, then promptly soldered the wrong sides to the plug and when I connected it, a little popping sound came from the computer and that was the end. So I killed my little tiny computer, sadly. So I just got a new one yesterday, and I did further surgery to steal the hard drive from the old one and get all the files onto this new one. She is performing well so far. I'm now running windows 7, which is nice, but I don't have all the programs set up yet. I was also nearly finished with another video and trying to get the new computer to finish it is not easy.

There are a few other things I want to do to the boat. I've never really tried to get rid of all the little leaks in the sides and top, where water trickles down through little connections and holes in the deck, but it is important (if you have electrical things) to keep the inside of the boat dry, and very difficult during a long passage. I think I'll spend some time re-caulking as much as I can.

For future passages I am going to be much simpler with my food supply. I threw away a lot of fruits and wasn't in the mood to eat a lot of things (or it came back up, and then I didn't want to see that kind of food ever again) so I will be going more with just potatoes and rice and lentils and eggs. Combinations of those seemed to work quite well.

Arrival!

I made it to Hilo!  I arrived at 8:44 on May 29th.  29 Days and 20 hours of travel. 

Here are some pictures, but I don't have enough time right now for a full write up of everything.  I'll get to that later...

The final shot of land as I left:

 Isla San Benedicto:

Masked Boobys at San Benedicto:

Departure

This is the "do not worry" post. 
Dear mother,
There isn't much internet out in the ocean, so probably I won't be posting or anything for a while.  But there is some internet!  Sometimes a ship might be passing which can post a comment to this posting.  If so, I will ask them to post my position.  So you can look for new comments occasionally.
I might try to stop at an island on the way, well, out of the way.  Isla Clarion is a little bit south.  There is a navy base there, maybe some internet.  And beautiful birds.  But that is weather and food and mood dependent. 
I'll see you on the other side!

A farewell to Mexico

I made a farewell video of Mexico, sort of a compilation of the trip here.  All the food and water and everything is onboard, I am ready to go. 
All I have to do is haul the anchor and set the sails...

More sailing video

I've got almost all my food, and the prep is nearly complete.  And I am excited about going.  But first, I went out sailing the other day on another boat, Lila.  Here is the video.
What's that you say?  Why not a video of my boat?  It is coming, I assure you, but I am practicing on the other boats first, and learning to make a decent video.

Because its there

Why am I going? I can answer the where and the how, and work on the way, but the why is not so easy. Is it to see the sights? I should take an airplane or have someone else along. Is it to see the deep? To be away from people?

There is definitely some ego in this voyage. Perhaps that is not a bad thing. I am a bit like Ahab, seeking to punch a hole through the White Whale and touch the face of God. Except I don't want to kill, but to be judged. I have climbed a mountain to reach for the heavens, to taste my own mortality and be able to step back into life reborn. I wasn't in much danger on the heights, yet I could see the dangers flying past in the thin atmosphere.

The sailing trip will be similar, I think. A feeling of danger and the time for testing my spirit. There might even be real dangers and bad weather for me to deal with, though I am most worried about my own reflection. 30 days without people is a long time.

If upon arrival (the if is always necessary, I think), I hope to be stronger, graduated, or more wise, but I suppose I will have just a memory of a long time sitting going slow upon the waters. Is that worth it? Will the bragging right of singlehanding a long ocean passage be something I even want? I think so. I am always hoping for approval, and here's another way to impress. 

I wrote that a few days ago, but on a different subject, there is a contest!

If you can look up "hull speed calculations" and do some guessing, I will be leaving La Cruz anchorage at 12:00 (noon) on Monday the 30th for destination Hawaii.  How long will it take for me to get there? 

Please input your guesses (by comment or by email) as to the hour and day that I arrive at the breakwater in Hilo.  Closest guess wins a fabulous prize.  

I'm also going to try and call up any boats I see while underway and have them add a comment with my position to the blog.  So look at the comments if you are interested in potential updates to my location.  

I have a few more things to do before I leave, and a few more days to do it.  

 

Yelapa River Walk

So I made a video of the river walk.  If you are getting tired of these music videos and want something different, give me a comment and an idea.
I think the video had some problems, so I am trying it again.  Sorry if it didn't work out before

Yelapa

I went back to Yelapa.  I hadn't been for a year, but a bunch of other boats were going, sort of like a race, so I joined in.

I really like the birds that live over there, and because of the river, there is fresh water to walk around in and swim in.  So I did a river walk and went up to a waterfall.

On the way back there was a woodpecker in the tree.  I saw one of these last year with Abe and Katrina, in San Blas, but this woodpecker is really neat looking, and not in the bird book I have.

There was also this kind of nut that grows up there, and last year my dad and I were finding a lot of the shells, and wondering what they came from.  This is a picture of the fruiting body.

Another video.... Sorry

Really I am not sorry.  I've been doing these sailing music videos a few times now, and this one might be the best I have done as of yet.  Possibly it is just because I like the song so much, but also some of the footage is better than I have had before.  Why am I not making videos of my own boat?  Well, I will get going on that, but first I have to learn on other boats.  I recommend that you watch for some of the "forwards" that I put in, there are three.  If you can't find them, then I didn't do a good enough job.

Gearing Up

I'm Gnashing my teeth and going sailing almost every day, getting the boat ready for the trip across to Hawaii. I hope for a good wind on the 30th, just 10 days away!
Yesterday I went out sailing and chasing another boat, Shamaness. I got some pictures of them, and they got some shots of me! I had just cleaned the bottom, so I was super fast and smooth sailing, and LaFawnda is working awesome with the clean bottom! She is still a bit too powerful, so in these shots you can see the vane is not up to "full power" position, and when the wind came up a bit more she was getting a bit twitchy, maybe more than I would like. So I will "dumb down" the system a little bit to make the motion more in a straight line. Its nice to have a wind vane that is too sensitive, rather than not enough.
For example, I was motoring a few days ago and LaFawnda was steering the boat while motoring in very close to no wind at all. I think 2 knots or less. So the sensitivity is awesome!
Other than that, I just bought a bunch of food. I'll go and buy more in a few more days, and then probably one more big stock-up the day before I leave. And I need to get a little more water.
Then the day I leave, I scrub the bottom again, and off into the blue!
There will be a quiz for you all on the departure day, which is a guessing game. When, to the day, hour and minute, will I arrive? The definition of arrival is the turning around Hilo bay breakwater....
Here are some constants to consider...
Altair is 20 ft, 6 inches at the waterline. The bottom paint is 6 months old. The mainsail has 4 patches in it. The spinnaker is torn, but I hope to repair it before I leave. I can hold 15 gallons of Diesel. Light travels at a constant rate in a vacuum. I will leave on April 30, and the distance is something you can look up.
Be sure to have the guess in by May 20 in order to qualify for the prize. The Prize!
The shots of Altair are from Shamaness. I took the others.

Guns, Germs, and other things

Last night I was over on another boat and we got into a most interesting conversation, that I would like to share some of the things I learned... Unfortunately it is of a political nature. I must be growing more conservative in my old age, so here I am writing about politics.
Its about guns.
Some of the fellow sailors down here are Canadian, so they come from a land with different rules, and the whole "right to bear arms" leads to contention. But I am beginning to understand why the USA started up that amendment, and why it was near the top of the list. It is important. In a society there are many things that drive the balances of power, such as money, or food, or strength of arm (like a big dude at school), or strength of arms (the guns). In a place such as China, where the general public is not allowed to have guns, then that kind of power is very highly concentrated in the military, which is controlled by the leaders. Supposing the leaders are unpopular, they have the upper hand, whereas in another country (say that this country exists, just pretend) where the power of armament is more spread out, if the leaders are unpopular, they can be replaced.
But at the same time, I think that there are many things that can force the balance of power, and in the USA only the guns have a nice amendment to try and diversify. There isn't much about spreading money around, (Socialist!!) and for certain, money is effective in keeping the leaders in office, with the whole lobby thing.
So I am more understanding about the second amendment, but I don't think I agree to it that much anymore, since the "powers that be" are still much stronger than me no matter how many guns I have.
As for life on an island, having a gun is a tremendous balance shifter. If I were to have a gun on my boat and a pirate comes along without one, I have the huge upper hand.
Actually, a lot of this thinking came about when I was watching "Lost" the TV series, over the last few weeks. Its a dumb part of the show that comes up quite often, that someone has a gun and the other does not, and you get to watch the drama that comes from a power shift.
If you look at the picture very carefully, you will see a joke.
I also am starting another course of antibiotics, in order to try and cure the infection in my toe, where I kicked a sea urchin a long time ago. This is the third try, and it is tenacious. So watch out for urchins. I got a double course of antibiotics, so I can have an extra set if something happens while on the way to Hawaii.
And lastly, I plotted out the course of the sun through the year in Longitude shift. So if you look out every day at the same time (say noon) and watch the sun, it should move west and east over the year in this pattern...

Tumbleweed

Actually, the boat is called Great Bear, or will be. But it still says Tumbleweed on the sides, and I like that name better.
So a while ago I was walking along the marina here and I saw a nice looking ketch sitting there with a young dude working on it. Then again, later, I saw the same dude working on the boat again. And again. He was always working on the boat. Sanding and painting and such. Eventually I met him and found out he is a cool guy, despite being a Canadian, and he is also a surfer. So we went surfing once at a place I hadn't been before, since you have to drive there. I had been trying to convince him that he should untie the boat from the dock since the moment I met him, and take it for a ride, but he is a diligent worker, and does a quality job of things, which takes time. I, on the other hand, do poor work and make things that just barely hold together and need repairs often, but for some reason I get the job done very quickly and then go sailing a lot.
Finally we went out sailing in his boat yesterday. It was the first time I had sailed a ketch, though I had been aboard two masted boats before. I got to play with the balance of the boat and it was very nicely balanced. And I made a movie of it.
The boat balances so well, I am reasoning, because it has two masts, which are like two feet to stand on. The single masted boats have a more tricky balance by using the main and jib to push against each other, but when you have two jibs and two mains you can balance the smaller ones and then use the bigger ones for power. And that is what we did.
I love a mizzen mast now. But I also don't want to have one on a boat. Sadly, the wonderful balancing act of the boat (going upwind) isn't worth the nuisance of having the mast in the way over the cockpit, the hassle of an extra sail, and how that sail blocks having a rack and shade over the cockpit. So I won't have one. And, since mostly boats that cruise are looking to go downwind, a boat that balances still needs to balance downwind, and the mizzen was all tied up and not in use for that direction. So I vote it off the island, sadly. I like it and don't want it on my boat.

A restless night

So last night was a very eventful night. The swell has been really big lately, so I sailed out to go surfing at Burros, and after a killer evening session, I was paddling back to the boat in the dark. The sunset was really nice, but someone had said that they had seen a shark swim by, so I was a bit nervous, but I made it home safely. Since my feet had still been hurting I was really tired and fell asleep quickly.
Sometime in the night I had some weird dreams about the boat crashing into rocks, and I woke up to find everything rocking around a lot. My heart rate shot up of course, since I figured the anchor had slipped, but then I heard something hit the side and I realized it was a boat. Someone had pulled up alongside and a couple people had got on board! They weren't making any sounds, but the boat was moving all over the place from the waves and the extra weight all at once, and I didn't think they were going to be friendly, so I grabbed for my big flashlight that I keep under the steps and for my kukri (a big knife that my brother gave me) . One of the guys came around the corner of the dodger and I blasted him in the face with the light, and then ran up to push him overboard. I got him into the water, but he grabbed onto me so I just went in with him. As I fell I could see there was another guy onboard in the front, and it looked like they were trying to cut the anchor loose. So they were going to try to steal the boat!
I hit the water wrestling with this guy and tried to drag him down to the bottom, but he let go of me and I went under the keel and then popped up the other side to get up the ladder. Thats when I saw the dorsal fin slide past me and then I heard the other guy start screaming. So there was a shark!
I managed to get back aboard Altair, and then got the light which I dropped in the cockpit and blasted the guy in the front (they were looking at the guy in the water getting eaten) and started yelling my head off.
Maybe he figured it wasn't worth it, because he jumped back into the panga and pushed away, while trying to get the motor running.
Anyways, after that it was a quiet night. And since it is April first, I hope you were fooled.

Under the sun

Well, I am not quite there yet... When will the sun be directly overhead? the answer is May 20, for PV.
Its a sine curve, with the equation
Lattitude = 23.5 x Sine (theta)

But theta is an angle, and you have to make it a percentage of the 92 day season between March 21 and June 21.

So here is a picture of the idea. Now, Hilo is 19.75 degrees north, so the date of overheadness is May 17, and if I leave on July 9, I will be crossing the sun's path again at 22 degrees north.

Spring

Well, it has already sprung, I guess, but still, there she is. It is now springtime, and I am much relieved to have shaken off winter. Not as much as you folks up in the white north, most likely, but relieved enough. Maybe I am destined to die in wintertime, because I feel it weakening me every year. Maybe it is the connection with my jungle ancestors (oh wait, they don't know wintertime in the jungle) or with my acer macrophyllum relatives. (who knows what that means, without having to look it up, besides my brother?) But that is over now. Soon it will be summer. I am really interested in watching the sun rise higher and higher each day, arcing overhead with the joy of a pollo. Oh, not a chicken! I mean Apollo! Does chicken (pollo) and Apollo have anything to do with each other?
So I am watching the sun and waiting for the light to come from overhead. Since I am at 20 degrees 45 minutes, that shouldn't be long. Here is a quiz. If the sun works in a sinusoidal curve from equator to tropic to equator to other tropic, based on the revolution around the sun (which we would assume is circular, but really it isn't) then what day does the sun reside directly over 20.75 degrees north lattitude?
You should note that the sun is directly over the equator on the equinoxes.
Except that all of that is not really true. It would be nice if it was, and that is what I base the quiz on, but the truth is more complicated, like leapyears and such. The earth doesn't go around in a circle, so the sun spends more time over the northern part of the sine curve than the southern (hence the colder south pole) (well, the fact that land is on the south pole also has something to do with that) So if you want to be exact, you need the almanac. But that's just the way it is. Part of the trick with Celestial navigation. But you can do all right with the navigation with a sine curve.
Ok, back to business. Hawaii is about the same lattitude (just a little south), so if I leave April 30, and get in before June 1, will I see the sun directly over my head during the passage?
I don't think it will be that impressive, but I've never seen a directly overhead sun. The closest I've come was probably in Vietnam last June, when I was about 10 degrees north, and the sun was still to the north of me.
Or in Costa Rica in March a few years ago, I was at 8 degrees, and the sun was at 0. Close, but not perfect.
So I am happy with the returnation of the sun to the northern lands (sorry for you folks down under).

March blues

The sun rises alone today. Much like the other days of the year. Yesterday some people told me that I was so lucky, to be able to wander off whenever I choose and to sit outside the surf break and come surf when I want. They have a point, I am lucky to be able to do it, but at the same time, they have something that I do not, and something I am increasingly missing. An anchor. I have 6 on board, but that's not what I mean. Something that keeps them here. I am only where I am at the moment, and soon enough, that moment will end. What I really mean is that I'm starting to feel lonely. Starting. Its been building since I was four years old, and sometimes I can ignore it, while other times I am drowning. Everyone is moving back to the summer spawning grounds, the northern nests, and the tourists here all have families or at least lovers. I have Altair, but she doesn't breathe or have heartbeat to listen to in the night, just creaking bones and assorted metal pieces clanking around. The life that comes to me comes from other people, and they are far away.

There are some beautiful things I get to see, but they lack the meaning without getting to share them with someone. I can try to share with you, faithful blog reader, but that isn't quite the same, I am sorry to say. Anyways, I am coming home, not because the money is really running out, but because I lack the enthusiasm to go on alone.

The surf shot is from Kemi Vernon

Off to the Races!

There is a big regatta going on in the bay right now, with a lot of J-24s, some large boats, and some BIG BOATS. They've been zipping around the anchorage and yearning for speed, and contesting each other in the water every afternoon. A few days ago I managed to get myself mixed up in two races at once. One was against Stefan's brand new bottom paint (and his Triton) and the other was the big boat races that happened to be running across our course. But we were nice and gave them the right of way.
There have been a few other boats that haven't been racing (as far as I can see). A big trimaran and a big sloop, both showed up here and then left again, without partaking in the races. I hear there is some long distance race that they might have just finished here, and now are going home. So on the homeward bound leg, I caught up with this super fast trimaran and got some pictures before I left him in my wake...
Anyways the wind is good and the races are fun to sail around and watch. El Presidente de Mexico was here to watch the race, so I got close to him, but didn't see him in person. Too bad. I've seen the prez of Panama and China, why not one more?
Here are some pictures from the racing...
And a helicopter for someone to identify.