New Stuff for the New Year

I've been abnormally busy this winter season, and as a result, I haven't been on Aquila too much.  I started out with three weeks aboard Aquila in Punta Mita, but then went to Hawaii (flying) to work on the Safari Explorer for three weeks.  Then I was back for one week, but then went away again.  This time to La Paz (Baja California) for a 10 day trip up through the sea of cortez.  It was a great trip, but I left from there to go back to Bellingham for Christmas, and only got back to my precious sailboat a week ago.  

So thats 5 weeks of being home so far this winter.  

Now that I'm here, I'm trying to do some improvements.  I made some Banana Bread, with cinnamon and sugar on top!

Here you can see it going in the oven.  I have a special recipe that uses no measurements and always

seems to turn out well.  I'm rather proud.  

Here is the secret:

1) Lots of Bananas.  Mush them up in a big pot or bowl

2) Add some eggs, one or two, or maybe three if you're so inclined.

3) Put in enough pancake mix to make it pretty stiff.

4) Add a bit of oil, and salt and sugar

5) stir it up and add water until its the "right" viscosity

6) put in a pan and then add sugar and cinnamon

7) put in the oven and pray

In addition to my baking accomplishments, I got a new sail.  An Asymmetrical Spinnaker, of size 2.  Or an A2.  The sizing on spinnakers is complicated, but the sail can be made very flat (shaped like a triangle and good for going at and angle sideways to the wind more) and used to reach, or shaped more like a parachute and very round and designed to go more downwind; or to run.  

A reacher usually is best for winds of 100-120 degrees and sometimes even as high as 60 degrees if its light, so its kind of like a jib.  A big jib.  Like a genoa.  And sometimes people call these Gennakers.  (Genoa + Spinnaker)

A runner is designed to go further downwind, and has a much larger rounder top to it.  Here is a picture of my old A2, and it was really big.  Look at the huge curvature of this sail at the top

Now contrast this to the older A5 I have which is much flatter:

The A is for Asymmetric, and the odd numbers are for reachers, so A1, A3, A5.  The A1 is the biggest, and the A5 is the smallest (and designed for the highest winds)

I don't have an A1 or A3.

So I have the biggest running sail, designed to be flown from the top of the mast, and designed to have high curvature so it is efficient at angles of 120 to about 160.  So not directly downwind.  

Going directly downwind is difficult, and for this boat it is slow, so I go at an angle and then jibe back and forth.  

The new A2 is the same color as the A5, because I wanted it that way, but that will make it hard to tell them apart in pictures or video in the future, but if you see a sock at the top of the mast, that is the A2.  It doesn't roll up because its too curvy.  The A5 can roll up because it is flat.

In addition, I also got Starlink.  I'm using it right now, in fact.  A friend of mine had an antenna and didn't want it anymore, so she gave it to me, and I finally got it all hooked up and running.  Its very useful, but also it is very power hungry.  I didn't set up the antenna permanently yet, so its just sitting on the deck, and I put it away when I am not using it.  

Another look

I also got a second solar panel and so now I have two.  Before I had just one, centered in the middle of my solar arch, but two fit quite nicely.  Both panels are 400 watts, and 1x2 meters, but they are not exactly the same model, so they look a little bit different.  Mostly the looks are going to show up from a top view.  

From underneath there is a lot more shade, and I also have them wired to independent charge controllers.  The new one connects to the controller for the Watt and Sea Hydrogenerator, which now can supply power from the spinney thing and also from the solar panel.  Whichever is making more power.  

Its been cloudy the last two days, so I haven't been able to test out the power making too much, but even on a cloudy day they have been charging the batteries enough to keep the fridge happy.  

I have another two weeks here before I start to sail over to La Paz to go back to work again for a month, so I am excited to have these things done before the sail over. 
 

Mexico!

I just got done with a 10 day trip in Baja California, with the Safari Voyager.  It was a whirlwind trip, and it started out with a blue whale!

After the whale, we found these little alcids, they are Craveri's Murrelets

Here's one taking off

So I was part of the crew, of course.  Here's a shot of Walter, one of the guides.

On Isla Carmen, I found a dead tarantula, but it looks alive...

And a fig, which I love the colors of...

And a Bighorn Sheep horn.  It was big!

I don't know this flower, but I like it.

An American Oystercatcher.

And a Brown Pelican

And Brown Boobies.  The Male is on the left and the female is on the right.

Here's a Ruddy Turnstone

And an Osprey

These Cormorants are starting to turn to breeding plumage

A Snowy Egret

Another Osprey, but this one has a fish!

And a turtle.  This was from Bahia San Francisquito, which is further north than I had been before.  

A Perigrine Falcon with a bird in its talons.

The Pelican's outer coat of feathers are very loose, and I think they are used to cover the flying feathers to protect them from the sun, or to help thermoregulate.  

This gull was quite inquisitive

The sunrises are beautiful.  We made it to Puerto Refugio, and that was the furthest north we went

At Puerto Refugio we found some sea lions, but also an elephant seal, in the upper left.  The Big one.

A california sea lion with a drool problem

Another sea lion looking cool

and in classic pose

Two Blue footed Boobies looking like friends.

Here's the elephant seal closer up

We had a beach party that night and it was nice to have a fire on the beach

The next day we went to a tiny island in the middle of the sea, called San Pedro del Martyr.  it is covered in birds and sea lions, and the volcanic tuff is very cool looking, and erodes beautifully.

A curious sea lion

Then we went back to Isla Carmen, to the west side, and I found a cardinal

and a dead bighorn sheep

Then we went to isla san francisco, and there were little pipers on the beach.  I think this one is a dunlin

There was a skeleton of a needlefish on the beach, and someone found a little plastic figure of Olaf from "Frozen" and I posed him in the jaws of the fish.  Those teeth are looking great!

On the last day of the trip we went to Isla Esperitu Santu, and I found a Snowy Plover

And an Antelope Squirrel.  

It was a great trip, and I had never been to a few of the spots before, and so I was really glad to see them and to learn more about it.  We didn't see many whales, and most of them were in the southern part, so I am also glad to do the 7 day trips coming up in February and March, and cover those spots again.  

Tomorrow I go back to the USA for christmas and then I go back to my Aquila in a little while to sail around for a month before going back to work.  Lots of work this winter.
 

I'm in Hawaii now

Ok, Its been a little while, but once I was done with the summer season in Alaska, I went back to Bellingham for a few weeks.  During that time, there were some Northern Lights.  My mother and I went down to the lake to look out over a place with less lights, and we saw these sights:

And a bit more streaks to the east...

A few days later I went down to Mexico to get on my sailboat, and spent three weeks working on getting my boat up and running, and doing some surfing and sailing.  But then I flew to Hawaii to work on the Safari Explorer for a few weeks.  I'm there (here?) now.  On my way in, I took a little short hopper plane (a Cessna Caravan) over to Molokai, and here's a picture of Diamond Head.

Its kinda neat its a crater.  with a playfield in the center.  

Then the flight went over to Molokai, and this was the west side.

And the southwest side.  I stopped at this harbor when I was sailing around in 2012.  It had a bunch of Bees in it.

At Molokai the sunrise was great, with a palm tree.

We got the ship ready for a few days, and then we got guests, which we took to the Halawa valley.  I had sailed past this valley in 2012, and saw a big shark nearby.  Abe will remember this.

In the valley there was great rainbows all over.

And the Taro plants, which they make food out of.  

Here's another look at the taro fields, like a rice paddy.

The big trees have domains of greenery and they don't quite overlap, so its like a geologic map

There are these Elephant ear plants, which are giant.

Here's a better look at the leaf domains...

I found a surprising amount of fungus.  

We walked to a waterfall, but it was pretty good river flow, so we had to be careful to get across the rivers.

Of course the flowers here are beautiful!

We headed from Molokai to Maui, and found some whales...

And we had a great dolphin playing in the bow wake.  

We are now on Lanai, and then tomorrow we'll go to the big island, then play there for a few days until we get new guests on Sunday.