In spite of the bit of turmoil thrown at us on our last day at sea (more later), we made it safe and sound, making landfall in Hiva Oa on Saturday morning. I've only just been able to get internet- most things are closed all weekend- but know we are arrived and anchored among some 30 other cruising boats amid the steep and beautiful cliffs of the South Pacific Isles. Green is a magnificent color!
I promise to provide a real post soon but now I am on a French keyboard and typing is painfully slow. Many thanks for all the comments- we truly appreciate hearing from home!
Cheers!!!
Showing posts with label Passage: Mexico-Marquesas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Passage: Mexico-Marquesas. Show all posts
Monday, May 14, 2012
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Not Soon Enough
I should start by saying that everything is great and both ship and crew are in good working order. That said, we're in shambles. We're so close we can taste it. There are lots of birds flying around. The southern cross is bright as all hell. We've been variably coasting, scooting or careening along the southeasterlies for... I'm actually not sure. A while though. Long enough to feel like we should be there.
Our anxiousness is made worse by meals declining in freshness, quality, variety and virtually every other positive descriptor. They have become, in a word, substandard. Some have been categorically bad. Fortunately, Neptune's tastes are perfectly inverse to our own, so when we sacrifice all but three small portions of a horrific one-pot-wonder to the sea, it's a win-win.
What's more, there are signs aboard of an alarming moral decay that appears to accompany idleness and cultural confinement. Yesterday, as I haphazardly shuffled through the now mostly ragged stack of magazines my parents brought us in PV for entertainment and a taste of home, I came upon one that I hadn't yet read. It was the April 2012 issue of Gentleman's Quarterly. Excitement poured through me; a lengthy magazine such as this could keep me busy for hours. Then, realizing what I'd become, I was ashamed. GQ. I even looked at the pictures of mostly British dudes wearing ridiculous outfits. On one page, there was a short bit dedicated to the latest fashionable man bags- totes, if you will. Or, as we call them in America... I'll leave that rant off right there with the comfort of knowing my siblings will be able to infer a suitable diatribe and with that a fitting memory of their floating brother.
Seriously though, there was a man-tote that cost more than two thousand pounds (Chittick: ?That's a heavy bag.?). Shocking. But I read it and, as you can see, I absorbed it into brain capacity that I might never get back. To be fair though, there were some great and well-written articles. And the presence of poignant political and cultural commentary among pages and pages of photos of men in colorful suits, men with shoes on, men with watches on their wrists, men with hair done-up, tatooed men with salmon-colored pants, men with nice non-baseball hats, men with man-totes, makes the whole thing all the more bewildering. It's like an encyclopedia of the preceding month in British pop-culture, sort of the insecure, one-upping offspring of Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair. But Chittick said there would be samples of things that smell good in it, so I read on and on. I read the whole damn thing and there were no free samples that might help combat the odor that... actually, I'm not going to describe the odor.
See I've gotten off track, but the point was that I spent the bulk of a whole day reading that magazine and I was glad to do so. And now I've gone and written excessively about it, allotting even more of my time and brain-thinking-power to GQ. As I said: shambles. The last week or so has been tough. Not the type of tough where it's actually physically or mentally strenuous or anything, but the type of tough like a six-year-old trying to sleep on Christmas Eve.
We've recently abolished the use of landmarks. They've been deemed counter-productive. First it was the ITCZ, then the equator, then the 1000 nm to go, then 500 to go, then 400. It's not helpful. If you're wondering what it feels like to have now only 230 nm to go in a 2750 nm passage, the answer is exactly the same as it felt when we passed the last imaginary line in our path that had been fixed in our navigational minds. Unspectacular. I long for the sweet smell of hibiscus; that- smell- is the sense I am most excited to reunite with land. And I miss exercise; we haven't walked more than about 15 feet at a time in nearly a month. It seems only the final landmark- the one on land- will assuage our restlessness.
I have wondered when this perverse relationship will end that has us feeling farther away the closer we get. Today, supposing that point might be when we finally see land, I got out some paper and figured at what distance from the island we'd be able to catch our first glimpse, knowing the highest peak of Hiva Oa to be 1276 m, according to Lonely Planet. Assuming we're perched on Ardea at a mere 5 feet above sea level, it's 95.171 nautical miles. Great. Of course, at this rate we'll come into that range at night, so it's moot. That was entertaining for a solid twenty minutes, though.
All this whining aside, we really are doing pretty well. Other than tiring of having to hear Dana's list of possible dinner ingredients (?Potatoes... rice... noodles... eggs... cabbage... alright, pick a starch.?), and just generally wishing for some variety in our activities and environment, we continue to be in high spirits. Ardea continues to kick ass like a ninja, albeit a really slow ninja with not so much of the stealthiness. We did end up motoring a fair amount, though I won't report the final numbers until we arrive, and we've had a couple of squally convection zones in the southern hemisphere so far. In fact, a few nights ago we got a real nice one where it was all rainy and I, on watch, got to yell for Dana to come help and we reefed with a vengeance and watched in the full moon as a line of squalls hunkered towards us and we cycled through 5 and 25 knots, dry and down-pour for an hour or two. The break in routine was exciting.
Also, last night we saw a ship. Dana and I were sitting in the cockpit late, moon still near-full, drinking beers and enjoying the incredibly comfortable night air. I nodded to a dot on the horizon, only visible when the swell was right and mumbled without enthusiasm, ?Think that's a ship or a star??. We each alternately assessed that it was a star, then decided it was probably a ship, then went back confidently to star, then went on to talk about something else. Within ten minutes we could see its navigation lights, so we turned ours on. It passed us another ten or fifteen minutes after that, close enough that we could hear the engines. I tried hailing them on the vhf, just to say hi (we hadn't seen a ship in weeks), but they didn't respond. It was probably a Japanese long-line fishing vessel, but we're not really sure. Exciting, huh?
And so we continue, safe and sound, weather agreeable if less windy than ideal, and really and truly almost there. We're at 07 degrees 16 minutes South, 135 degrees 54 minutes West. I'm not sure if Shiptrak shows the islands, but ?there? is 09 degrees 49 minutes South, 139 degrees 02 minutes West in Tahauku Bay near the town of Atuona on the island of Hiva Oa in the Marquesas Archipelago in French Polynesia. So, we're basically looking at Friday afternoon if it gets a lot windier right now, Saturday if there exists a modicum of mercy in the world, and Sunday+ should the status-quo be maintained.
We were told on the radio net the other night by some folks who already arrived that the town is about a 45 minute walk from the anchorage, but it was possible to get a car ride in. I don't know if these people have a fitness center on their boat or just take a sadistic joy in watching their legs atrophy, but you couldn't pay us to take a ride into town. When we get there, I'll walk the whole damn day and with a smile on my face.
Our anxiousness is made worse by meals declining in freshness, quality, variety and virtually every other positive descriptor. They have become, in a word, substandard. Some have been categorically bad. Fortunately, Neptune's tastes are perfectly inverse to our own, so when we sacrifice all but three small portions of a horrific one-pot-wonder to the sea, it's a win-win.
What's more, there are signs aboard of an alarming moral decay that appears to accompany idleness and cultural confinement. Yesterday, as I haphazardly shuffled through the now mostly ragged stack of magazines my parents brought us in PV for entertainment and a taste of home, I came upon one that I hadn't yet read. It was the April 2012 issue of Gentleman's Quarterly. Excitement poured through me; a lengthy magazine such as this could keep me busy for hours. Then, realizing what I'd become, I was ashamed. GQ. I even looked at the pictures of mostly British dudes wearing ridiculous outfits. On one page, there was a short bit dedicated to the latest fashionable man bags- totes, if you will. Or, as we call them in America... I'll leave that rant off right there with the comfort of knowing my siblings will be able to infer a suitable diatribe and with that a fitting memory of their floating brother.
Seriously though, there was a man-tote that cost more than two thousand pounds (Chittick: ?That's a heavy bag.?). Shocking. But I read it and, as you can see, I absorbed it into brain capacity that I might never get back. To be fair though, there were some great and well-written articles. And the presence of poignant political and cultural commentary among pages and pages of photos of men in colorful suits, men with shoes on, men with watches on their wrists, men with hair done-up, tatooed men with salmon-colored pants, men with nice non-baseball hats, men with man-totes, makes the whole thing all the more bewildering. It's like an encyclopedia of the preceding month in British pop-culture, sort of the insecure, one-upping offspring of Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair. But Chittick said there would be samples of things that smell good in it, so I read on and on. I read the whole damn thing and there were no free samples that might help combat the odor that... actually, I'm not going to describe the odor.
See I've gotten off track, but the point was that I spent the bulk of a whole day reading that magazine and I was glad to do so. And now I've gone and written excessively about it, allotting even more of my time and brain-thinking-power to GQ. As I said: shambles. The last week or so has been tough. Not the type of tough where it's actually physically or mentally strenuous or anything, but the type of tough like a six-year-old trying to sleep on Christmas Eve.
We've recently abolished the use of landmarks. They've been deemed counter-productive. First it was the ITCZ, then the equator, then the 1000 nm to go, then 500 to go, then 400. It's not helpful. If you're wondering what it feels like to have now only 230 nm to go in a 2750 nm passage, the answer is exactly the same as it felt when we passed the last imaginary line in our path that had been fixed in our navigational minds. Unspectacular. I long for the sweet smell of hibiscus; that- smell- is the sense I am most excited to reunite with land. And I miss exercise; we haven't walked more than about 15 feet at a time in nearly a month. It seems only the final landmark- the one on land- will assuage our restlessness.
I have wondered when this perverse relationship will end that has us feeling farther away the closer we get. Today, supposing that point might be when we finally see land, I got out some paper and figured at what distance from the island we'd be able to catch our first glimpse, knowing the highest peak of Hiva Oa to be 1276 m, according to Lonely Planet. Assuming we're perched on Ardea at a mere 5 feet above sea level, it's 95.171 nautical miles. Great. Of course, at this rate we'll come into that range at night, so it's moot. That was entertaining for a solid twenty minutes, though.
All this whining aside, we really are doing pretty well. Other than tiring of having to hear Dana's list of possible dinner ingredients (?Potatoes... rice... noodles... eggs... cabbage... alright, pick a starch.?), and just generally wishing for some variety in our activities and environment, we continue to be in high spirits. Ardea continues to kick ass like a ninja, albeit a really slow ninja with not so much of the stealthiness. We did end up motoring a fair amount, though I won't report the final numbers until we arrive, and we've had a couple of squally convection zones in the southern hemisphere so far. In fact, a few nights ago we got a real nice one where it was all rainy and I, on watch, got to yell for Dana to come help and we reefed with a vengeance and watched in the full moon as a line of squalls hunkered towards us and we cycled through 5 and 25 knots, dry and down-pour for an hour or two. The break in routine was exciting.
Also, last night we saw a ship. Dana and I were sitting in the cockpit late, moon still near-full, drinking beers and enjoying the incredibly comfortable night air. I nodded to a dot on the horizon, only visible when the swell was right and mumbled without enthusiasm, ?Think that's a ship or a star??. We each alternately assessed that it was a star, then decided it was probably a ship, then went back confidently to star, then went on to talk about something else. Within ten minutes we could see its navigation lights, so we turned ours on. It passed us another ten or fifteen minutes after that, close enough that we could hear the engines. I tried hailing them on the vhf, just to say hi (we hadn't seen a ship in weeks), but they didn't respond. It was probably a Japanese long-line fishing vessel, but we're not really sure. Exciting, huh?
And so we continue, safe and sound, weather agreeable if less windy than ideal, and really and truly almost there. We're at 07 degrees 16 minutes South, 135 degrees 54 minutes West. I'm not sure if Shiptrak shows the islands, but ?there? is 09 degrees 49 minutes South, 139 degrees 02 minutes West in Tahauku Bay near the town of Atuona on the island of Hiva Oa in the Marquesas Archipelago in French Polynesia. So, we're basically looking at Friday afternoon if it gets a lot windier right now, Saturday if there exists a modicum of mercy in the world, and Sunday+ should the status-quo be maintained.
We were told on the radio net the other night by some folks who already arrived that the town is about a 45 minute walk from the anchorage, but it was possible to get a car ride in. I don't know if these people have a fitness center on their boat or just take a sadistic joy in watching their legs atrophy, but you couldn't pay us to take a ride into town. When we get there, I'll walk the whole damn day and with a smile on my face.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Wearing my oceans on my sleeves.
As we swept along through the trade winds, we became fond of remarking in high spirits about ?riding the bus.? The bus being the 12 to 15 foot swell with massive long troughs that lovingly lifted us along at a couple extra knots. That with the consistent 18 knots of breeze and we sat back carefree and watched the ocean fly by. The whipping sea and foam mesmerized us. Time, too, was swept faster by the swell and our states of mind took on the pacifying undulation of riding the bus.
When we hit the doldrums, there was an equal but opposite effect on our perceptions and, in turn, time began to wear. The seas became steadier; before there was swell and wave and wavelet and ripple but now we were in a single order sea. No longer was the mesmerizing motion, the feeling of lift in every bone on every puff or crest; no longer did the sea whip by so quickly that the attention could not become fixed. In the doldrums, our gaze met a stationary sea and we stared with glazed eyes and could feel time slow and stick to our skins unhurried by progress. We were at the start of several days of decaying progress that left us on each day to conclude that we were about ten days from landfall- I chuckled ironically to be living Xeno's paradox (I'm in the middle of the ocean- I'll get philosophical if I want to, dammit). By this point in our voyage, it had become clear that we were part of the boat and the boat part of us. More than our fates were intertwined- our very moods had become linked.
We've all had to accept the fact our mental state is continuously influenced by the state of ship and sea. It's impossible not to know what's going on. Every sense is stimulated in ways that vary proportionately with wind and swell. The clanking rigging and thrashing sails of a becalmed ship cannot be mistaken for the rush of water along a moving hull, which, it cannot be ignored, is sometimes accompanied by the crash of waves and the whistle of wind through shrouds as conditions improve (or deteriorate, depending on your perspective, i.e., how long you've been becalmed). Similarly, the body is constantly shifted, sometimes contorted, in a manner befitting the conditions. Often the feeling is quite relaxing; sometimes, though, it is hardly tolerable, either due to physical discomfort or otherwise to the emotional fatigue that accompanies a motion that says, ?We're definitely not going forward. We may actually be going backwards.?
We aren't entirely at the whim of mother nature, but she and this little boat are part of our constant, unavoidable reality. When the reality becomes slow or frustrating, though we've remain quite even-tempered regardless, the air on the boat carries a quiet, introspective, sullen feeling. One quickly learns the futility of being angry about the conditions, for one has no control over the nature or duration of these things, but the mood will inevitably be effected for as long as a Ardea remains an ever-present extension of our bodies. Needless to say, our crawl through the doldrums got the better of what should be a state of content indifference to the passage of time. In short, we became incredibly antsy.
The squalls were for the most part disappointing. We managed to chase down a few like Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt but it was mainly just rainy. We never got more than 12 or 15 knots of breeze in the squalls and otherwise had anywhere from 2 to 8 knots. On the other hand, we were never completely and utterly becalmed like we had been on crossing the Sea of Cortez.
Sometime toward the end of our second day in the ITCZ, things went from moderately annoying to utterly contemptible. We had entered an East-setting current of about a knot and a half, approximately matching our velocity-made-good under sail at the time. That put a damper on our little jaunt through the quiet blue wilderness. We crossed the 129th meridian several times only to slowly drift back over; eventually it became unbearable. Even though the ITCZ weather had cleared, we were still praying for any little zephyr that Neptune might send to fill our sails. None received, we motored straight South, planning to be rid of that current forever.
We sailed some and motored some more and finally after what seemed a lifetime, we approached the equator. We were starting to see signs of improving weather: cumulus clouds, not too dense, steady barometer, a more uniform swell and an improving easterly breeze. Under sail in about 10 knots, we crossed Earth's middle about an hour after sunrise on May 4th. We had a good breeze for the first time in days, but we didn't care. We celebrated jubilantly. After we crossed, we turned back and hove to on the equator. We dropped the main sail down and drank rye whiskey and swung on the halyard, flipping or flopping into the sea, praising sweet Neptune. Under the surface in that place on the planet is an amazing abyss of the clearest, bluest, saltiest sea. To swim down even just a little bit seemed a most daring and bold maneuver. It seemed like it would be so easy to get lost in that great yonder, but at the same time we were compelled to hold our breath and swim down and out into the nothingness like kids daring themselves into the dark doorway of a haunted house. It was fascinating to be there.
Eventually, we trimmed the sails and set a course South again; the wind held and has still held since then, though it is only around 10 knots and, in due course, our moods are similarly moderated. A day later, around a minute and a half South, we broke free of the easterly current and set our course for the great circle bearing, straight to Hiva Oa.
We're still anxious and will remain so as the quality of our meals deteriorates and the itch for dry land and all the niceties it brings increases. Having ruled out cryogenically freezing ourselves for a week, we've decided to go with good old fashioned patience. If we can manage to hold 4.5 knots boat speed, we will be there next Saturday morning; word on the radio net has it that a bigger swell lies ahead, so we may even break the old 5 knot mark for a while. Who knows- maybe we'll hop back on that bus, where spirits soar and time slips away unnoticed. Either way, we'll soon be arrived, whatever that means.
When we hit the doldrums, there was an equal but opposite effect on our perceptions and, in turn, time began to wear. The seas became steadier; before there was swell and wave and wavelet and ripple but now we were in a single order sea. No longer was the mesmerizing motion, the feeling of lift in every bone on every puff or crest; no longer did the sea whip by so quickly that the attention could not become fixed. In the doldrums, our gaze met a stationary sea and we stared with glazed eyes and could feel time slow and stick to our skins unhurried by progress. We were at the start of several days of decaying progress that left us on each day to conclude that we were about ten days from landfall- I chuckled ironically to be living Xeno's paradox (I'm in the middle of the ocean- I'll get philosophical if I want to, dammit). By this point in our voyage, it had become clear that we were part of the boat and the boat part of us. More than our fates were intertwined- our very moods had become linked.
We've all had to accept the fact our mental state is continuously influenced by the state of ship and sea. It's impossible not to know what's going on. Every sense is stimulated in ways that vary proportionately with wind and swell. The clanking rigging and thrashing sails of a becalmed ship cannot be mistaken for the rush of water along a moving hull, which, it cannot be ignored, is sometimes accompanied by the crash of waves and the whistle of wind through shrouds as conditions improve (or deteriorate, depending on your perspective, i.e., how long you've been becalmed). Similarly, the body is constantly shifted, sometimes contorted, in a manner befitting the conditions. Often the feeling is quite relaxing; sometimes, though, it is hardly tolerable, either due to physical discomfort or otherwise to the emotional fatigue that accompanies a motion that says, ?We're definitely not going forward. We may actually be going backwards.?
We aren't entirely at the whim of mother nature, but she and this little boat are part of our constant, unavoidable reality. When the reality becomes slow or frustrating, though we've remain quite even-tempered regardless, the air on the boat carries a quiet, introspective, sullen feeling. One quickly learns the futility of being angry about the conditions, for one has no control over the nature or duration of these things, but the mood will inevitably be effected for as long as a Ardea remains an ever-present extension of our bodies. Needless to say, our crawl through the doldrums got the better of what should be a state of content indifference to the passage of time. In short, we became incredibly antsy.
The squalls were for the most part disappointing. We managed to chase down a few like Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt but it was mainly just rainy. We never got more than 12 or 15 knots of breeze in the squalls and otherwise had anywhere from 2 to 8 knots. On the other hand, we were never completely and utterly becalmed like we had been on crossing the Sea of Cortez.
Sometime toward the end of our second day in the ITCZ, things went from moderately annoying to utterly contemptible. We had entered an East-setting current of about a knot and a half, approximately matching our velocity-made-good under sail at the time. That put a damper on our little jaunt through the quiet blue wilderness. We crossed the 129th meridian several times only to slowly drift back over; eventually it became unbearable. Even though the ITCZ weather had cleared, we were still praying for any little zephyr that Neptune might send to fill our sails. None received, we motored straight South, planning to be rid of that current forever.
We sailed some and motored some more and finally after what seemed a lifetime, we approached the equator. We were starting to see signs of improving weather: cumulus clouds, not too dense, steady barometer, a more uniform swell and an improving easterly breeze. Under sail in about 10 knots, we crossed Earth's middle about an hour after sunrise on May 4th. We had a good breeze for the first time in days, but we didn't care. We celebrated jubilantly. After we crossed, we turned back and hove to on the equator. We dropped the main sail down and drank rye whiskey and swung on the halyard, flipping or flopping into the sea, praising sweet Neptune. Under the surface in that place on the planet is an amazing abyss of the clearest, bluest, saltiest sea. To swim down even just a little bit seemed a most daring and bold maneuver. It seemed like it would be so easy to get lost in that great yonder, but at the same time we were compelled to hold our breath and swim down and out into the nothingness like kids daring themselves into the dark doorway of a haunted house. It was fascinating to be there.
Eventually, we trimmed the sails and set a course South again; the wind held and has still held since then, though it is only around 10 knots and, in due course, our moods are similarly moderated. A day later, around a minute and a half South, we broke free of the easterly current and set our course for the great circle bearing, straight to Hiva Oa.
We're still anxious and will remain so as the quality of our meals deteriorates and the itch for dry land and all the niceties it brings increases. Having ruled out cryogenically freezing ourselves for a week, we've decided to go with good old fashioned patience. If we can manage to hold 4.5 knots boat speed, we will be there next Saturday morning; word on the radio net has it that a bigger swell lies ahead, so we may even break the old 5 knot mark for a while. Who knows- maybe we'll hop back on that bus, where spirits soar and time slips away unnoticed. Either way, we'll soon be arrived, whatever that means.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
The Doldrums Blues
I am genuinely sullen. It's not my fault though. The sky is imbued with melancholy. It is the weather for brooding. Not just the weather, but the effect the weather has on the landscape. Sure, it's immensely beautiful, but it is not a jubilant beauty. It invokes quiet among onlookers. It reminds me of a New England harbor, very early in the morning, a fisherman in a yellow smock observing from the beach- all the lobster boats and fishing vessels and sailboats bobbing slowly and evenly at their moorings on glassy water amid a low, still fog. Yes, that would invoke the same sort of, not sadness, melancholy and, as in our case now, the feeling is made complete- the landscape more than a landscape- by the presence of the viewer. Without the viewer- without Ardea bobbing slowly along, her sails and rigging an incompetent orchestra providing a dissonant accompaniment- this would only be another kind of weather. But add the little boat and the vastness around her and the blanket mottled shades of gray in every conceivable direction (up and down) and the dashed hopes of those intrepid mariners who had been clipping along so well. Then it's a scene of glum introspection. If it were a painting, it would be metaphorical- 'drifting in the quiet expanse' or 'perusing the void'. But, instead, it's just us, having been now formerly introduced to the inter-tropical convergence zone.
The inherent injustice of being robbed of wind on a passage is made worse in the doldrums by the need to cross them just after the half-way point in the voyage. There we were, just under twelve hundred nautical miles to go and the patchy cumulus clouds that had been our joyful company, graciously blocking the hot sun at just the right intervals for almost two weeks, began to thicken to the southeast. They began to gain altitude in the southwest. East of us, they started to melt together. Like cookies placed too close together on a baking sheet, convection was expanding our friends the puffy cumulus clouds. Then, the rising warm air of five degrees North started to stretch them into the higher altitudes. Soon it was only to the north that we could still see signs of the idyllic trade winds that had treated us so well. What were cumulus ahead of us became cumulonimbus and with them came rain.
The first rain was joyous. We were smelly and it had been hot out for so long. We danced about on deck merrily and with little effort collected a couple gallons of fresh water in a bucket so that we could wash up. We scrubbed the deck and the rigging and Ardea was glad for a bath. But after that rain the sky never cleared. Rain has come and gone, the clouds having fully explored the spectrum of methods for soaking us down: tiny speckles of raindrops to cannonballs of water, slow drizzle to torrential downpour.
About the wind, however, we care a great deal more. It has struggled to maintain its former gusto. We've avoided being totally becalmed, thankfully, but since Sunday evening (4/29) we haven't been able to maintain the 6 or more knots that we'd held for so long. Based on the ship's log, I'd mark the ITCZ at 5 degrees 1 minute North. Based on weatherfax images, it is about 70 nm wide at our location. Having accepted our woeful exit from the northern hemisphere trades, our singular focus is now to get across this wretched band. We're having some success hunting down the northeast sides of squall systems; when we get one, we point straight South. It's a game of cat and mouse, but I'll be the first to say that the gusty high winds of the squalls are greatly preferable to crawling along at 2 knots. Sadly, we even threw the engine on for an hour or so to aid in our storm chasing. (We've all become very hardened against use of the engine, but since our total run time is still less than four hours and we're 17 days into the passage, we decided running down a squall or two with the old iron sail wouldn't be too huge a knock on our sailor's pride.)
With a bit of luck, we should clear the ITCZ in a day or so. We still won't have solid breeze until we get to about five degrees South, but hopefully conditions will be improving throughout the push to that point. Tonight or perhaps tomorrow morning we will be within one thousand miles of Hiva Oa. That fact and a visit from several dozen dolphins during the last squall, have boosted spirits in spite of our inadequate pace and the morose landscape. In the end, subdued as the crew may be, it feels a distinct honor to be in this very strange part of the world. Even though their creation has meant the dissipation of our beloved breeze, watching the numerous individual weather systems all around us is a unique experience. Still, I expect that with our impending equator crossing and as the southern trades begin to build, this little boat will once again abound with wide-eyed anticipation, for we all look forward to feeling the sand of the South Pacific Isles beneath our feet.
Here we are at 0630 Zulu 4/30/12:
Position: 04 deg 36.8' N 128 deg 37.5' W
Course: 180 T
Speed: 3.8 kt
Wind: 8 kt NE
Swell: 1 m NE
Baro: 1011
Fish: One mackerel about 5 pounds this morning, which I released. Two small tuna (young bigeye or yellowfin, 8 lbs or so each) this afternoon (threw one back). Had two large tuna on lines this evening but lost both and the lures due to poor angling on Dana and my part.
The inherent injustice of being robbed of wind on a passage is made worse in the doldrums by the need to cross them just after the half-way point in the voyage. There we were, just under twelve hundred nautical miles to go and the patchy cumulus clouds that had been our joyful company, graciously blocking the hot sun at just the right intervals for almost two weeks, began to thicken to the southeast. They began to gain altitude in the southwest. East of us, they started to melt together. Like cookies placed too close together on a baking sheet, convection was expanding our friends the puffy cumulus clouds. Then, the rising warm air of five degrees North started to stretch them into the higher altitudes. Soon it was only to the north that we could still see signs of the idyllic trade winds that had treated us so well. What were cumulus ahead of us became cumulonimbus and with them came rain.
The first rain was joyous. We were smelly and it had been hot out for so long. We danced about on deck merrily and with little effort collected a couple gallons of fresh water in a bucket so that we could wash up. We scrubbed the deck and the rigging and Ardea was glad for a bath. But after that rain the sky never cleared. Rain has come and gone, the clouds having fully explored the spectrum of methods for soaking us down: tiny speckles of raindrops to cannonballs of water, slow drizzle to torrential downpour.
About the wind, however, we care a great deal more. It has struggled to maintain its former gusto. We've avoided being totally becalmed, thankfully, but since Sunday evening (4/29) we haven't been able to maintain the 6 or more knots that we'd held for so long. Based on the ship's log, I'd mark the ITCZ at 5 degrees 1 minute North. Based on weatherfax images, it is about 70 nm wide at our location. Having accepted our woeful exit from the northern hemisphere trades, our singular focus is now to get across this wretched band. We're having some success hunting down the northeast sides of squall systems; when we get one, we point straight South. It's a game of cat and mouse, but I'll be the first to say that the gusty high winds of the squalls are greatly preferable to crawling along at 2 knots. Sadly, we even threw the engine on for an hour or so to aid in our storm chasing. (We've all become very hardened against use of the engine, but since our total run time is still less than four hours and we're 17 days into the passage, we decided running down a squall or two with the old iron sail wouldn't be too huge a knock on our sailor's pride.)
With a bit of luck, we should clear the ITCZ in a day or so. We still won't have solid breeze until we get to about five degrees South, but hopefully conditions will be improving throughout the push to that point. Tonight or perhaps tomorrow morning we will be within one thousand miles of Hiva Oa. That fact and a visit from several dozen dolphins during the last squall, have boosted spirits in spite of our inadequate pace and the morose landscape. In the end, subdued as the crew may be, it feels a distinct honor to be in this very strange part of the world. Even though their creation has meant the dissipation of our beloved breeze, watching the numerous individual weather systems all around us is a unique experience. Still, I expect that with our impending equator crossing and as the southern trades begin to build, this little boat will once again abound with wide-eyed anticipation, for we all look forward to feeling the sand of the South Pacific Isles beneath our feet.
Here we are at 0630 Zulu 4/30/12:
Position: 04 deg 36.8' N 128 deg 37.5' W
Course: 180 T
Speed: 3.8 kt
Wind: 8 kt NE
Swell: 1 m NE
Baro: 1011
Fish: One mackerel about 5 pounds this morning, which I released. Two small tuna (young bigeye or yellowfin, 8 lbs or so each) this afternoon (threw one back). Had two large tuna on lines this evening but lost both and the lures due to poor angling on Dana and my part.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Don't Touch That Dial.
It occurred to me today that we've come to treat our daily radio time with great reverence. A technology we may formerly have viewed as archaic or obsolete, we now anticipate with child-like excitement; first-half-twentieth-century child, of course. We crowd around the nav station right around 0200 Zulu, which, these days, falls just before sunset. One might be sprawled out in the cockpit, lying with head at the companionway, or standing in the galley facing starboard, or maybe sitting up straight on the settee, leaning forward, feet firmly on the floor. That's literally all of the places available within earshot of the radio. Except, of course, the nav station seat, belonging to the person currently on watch, or to whomever they bartered the position out of laziness (getting our position report across can sometimes be a cumbersome process, countering the obvious advantage of being directly in front of the radio). And we listen with fervor.
I suppose it'll help to outline briefly what goes on during our daily radio net, in order to more accurately convey the degree to which it has become an event of importance to the crew of Ardea. Basically, the net consists of a roll-call facilitated by a net-controller, a job which rotates among three or four boats. The net-controller makes his or her way down the list, making contact with and receiving reports from each boat. Reports consist of position, speed, course, weather information and any info that might be of use to others. Because high-frequency radio relies on effectively bouncing radio waves off of a zone of the atmosphere (deemed the ionosphere), its range is dependent not just on the frequency, but also on atmospheric conditions at the time. Propagation conditions can have a big impact on signals. This problem is usually solved by relaying information through boats that are able to capture weaker signals, who then convey the information to the rest of the net, but it can be a very long process on nights when conditions are poor. When we first left there were considerably more boats on the roll-call and, depending on how many relays were needed, it took about an hour before spot came up.
Anyway, the whole thing gets more and more exciting as it progresses. See, the boats are listed on the roll-call in the order in which they left Mexico, so as the nightly saga presses on, it gets more relevant to us. We get potentially useful information as well as a means for comparison, which is the real kicker.
We aren't just sitting around the ham radio, listening to other boats read off their positions, sometimes over a period of several laborious minutes. We're writing it down, often frantically! And afterward, we chart the ones closest to us to see if we've gained on anyone. But charting is for after the net. It doesn't have quite the same action-packed, usually histrionic live analysis, complete with trash-talking, that we enjoy during the net.
I know what you're thinking, ?Connor. Dude. That really doesn't sound that cool.? But you're wrong!
A little quick mental math and we know about where our ?buddy boats? are, no charts required. And, although we haven't officially told any of them that we're racing, it's pretty obviously a contest, the buddy boat moniker being a fabrication, a cowardly tactic meant to catch us on our laurels. You can understand how emotions run high.
S/V Desolina, still about 100 nm south and 30 nm west (read: ahead) of us, might come in with his report; all three of us wait silently, totally still, as though movement or sound might obscure the signal. His position comes in- he hasn't increased his lead. Then, through garbling interference, like a ship through fog, like FDR next to a roaring fireplace, like the baseball announcer with the tying run at the plate...
?pppshhhshpppppshhhht boat speed psssshhht seven decimal zero knots.?
All three of us simultaneously come to life with the jerky motions of defeat. Chittick's shoulders relax as he sits back from the elbows-on-knees posture of anticipation and lets out a long, pained, ?Awwwwwwwwww.?
Dana stomps his foot and throws his head forward and back in a quick nod of disappointment, ?Dammit! Shit!?
I look down, let my forehead fall to my hand, uttering, ?That son-of-a-bitch.?
Our small victories are celebrated with almost as much gusto. That same night, a boat farther on than us decided to cross the ITCZ around 125W, a tactic we were decidedly against.
?ppppssshhht course of one nine zero magnetic psshhht motoring at four decimal two knots.?
Chittick: ?Motoring again? Oh come on!?
Me: ?Shouldn't have crossed so early. Yup, we're stayin North.?
Dana: ?What's their longitude again? Geeez.?
It's this type of banter that gives us entertainment. Obviously, it's mostly unfounded gossip, contrived criticism or completely invented stories built around little bits of patterned data we have about these other boats. But it's all in good fun and we find ourselves feeling like we know these folks that we've never even met simply because we know their radio personalities and have tracked their sailing progress. It might seem a little ridiculous to imagine the three of us huddled here claiming we'll never get becalmed like that boat or bemoaning another skipper's propensity for incredibly long transmissions or joking about how some controllers treat each contact like all the rest of us can't hear it, but we're fascinated with this contact with other people. Even though it isn't exactly a venue for conversation, we build conversation around it, venting our hyper-competitive natures and soothing the banality of our isolation. However crass or nonsensical are the resulting rambles on Ardea, the development of this ritual seems quite natural.
Having noted the evolution of this daily routine, I feel a connection with those whose forms of entertainment are lacking without some form of additional input. Somehow, the radio now seems like an interactive experience- the audience being as important as the broadcast; it simply wouldn't be the same without our collective banter, even if we're the only ones who hear it. It's like how my Mom always yells instructions at sports games even when she knows the players can't hear her. In like manner, we build ourselves some entertainment with what we have, and what we get is quite a bit more fun than even the most captivating episode of Pawn Stars.
Nevertheless, we're lucky to have been able to report today at 0200 Zulu:
Position: 08 deg. 20.9' N 126 deg 43.3' W
Course: 205 M (214 True)
Speed: 6 knots
Baro: 1011 mb
Wind: 16 knots NE
Swell: 2 m NE
We're sailing under the jib and the mizzen, with the main down and the main boom hauled to weather for stability. These days it's easy to see just how hopeful folks are when they wish one another fair winds and following seas.
Connor
I suppose it'll help to outline briefly what goes on during our daily radio net, in order to more accurately convey the degree to which it has become an event of importance to the crew of Ardea. Basically, the net consists of a roll-call facilitated by a net-controller, a job which rotates among three or four boats. The net-controller makes his or her way down the list, making contact with and receiving reports from each boat. Reports consist of position, speed, course, weather information and any info that might be of use to others. Because high-frequency radio relies on effectively bouncing radio waves off of a zone of the atmosphere (deemed the ionosphere), its range is dependent not just on the frequency, but also on atmospheric conditions at the time. Propagation conditions can have a big impact on signals. This problem is usually solved by relaying information through boats that are able to capture weaker signals, who then convey the information to the rest of the net, but it can be a very long process on nights when conditions are poor. When we first left there were considerably more boats on the roll-call and, depending on how many relays were needed, it took about an hour before spot came up.
Anyway, the whole thing gets more and more exciting as it progresses. See, the boats are listed on the roll-call in the order in which they left Mexico, so as the nightly saga presses on, it gets more relevant to us. We get potentially useful information as well as a means for comparison, which is the real kicker.
We aren't just sitting around the ham radio, listening to other boats read off their positions, sometimes over a period of several laborious minutes. We're writing it down, often frantically! And afterward, we chart the ones closest to us to see if we've gained on anyone. But charting is for after the net. It doesn't have quite the same action-packed, usually histrionic live analysis, complete with trash-talking, that we enjoy during the net.
I know what you're thinking, ?Connor. Dude. That really doesn't sound that cool.? But you're wrong!
A little quick mental math and we know about where our ?buddy boats? are, no charts required. And, although we haven't officially told any of them that we're racing, it's pretty obviously a contest, the buddy boat moniker being a fabrication, a cowardly tactic meant to catch us on our laurels. You can understand how emotions run high.
S/V Desolina, still about 100 nm south and 30 nm west (read: ahead) of us, might come in with his report; all three of us wait silently, totally still, as though movement or sound might obscure the signal. His position comes in- he hasn't increased his lead. Then, through garbling interference, like a ship through fog, like FDR next to a roaring fireplace, like the baseball announcer with the tying run at the plate...
?pppshhhshpppppshhhht boat speed psssshhht seven decimal zero knots.?
All three of us simultaneously come to life with the jerky motions of defeat. Chittick's shoulders relax as he sits back from the elbows-on-knees posture of anticipation and lets out a long, pained, ?Awwwwwwwwww.?
Dana stomps his foot and throws his head forward and back in a quick nod of disappointment, ?Dammit! Shit!?
I look down, let my forehead fall to my hand, uttering, ?That son-of-a-bitch.?
Our small victories are celebrated with almost as much gusto. That same night, a boat farther on than us decided to cross the ITCZ around 125W, a tactic we were decidedly against.
?ppppssshhht course of one nine zero magnetic psshhht motoring at four decimal two knots.?
Chittick: ?Motoring again? Oh come on!?
Me: ?Shouldn't have crossed so early. Yup, we're stayin North.?
Dana: ?What's their longitude again? Geeez.?
It's this type of banter that gives us entertainment. Obviously, it's mostly unfounded gossip, contrived criticism or completely invented stories built around little bits of patterned data we have about these other boats. But it's all in good fun and we find ourselves feeling like we know these folks that we've never even met simply because we know their radio personalities and have tracked their sailing progress. It might seem a little ridiculous to imagine the three of us huddled here claiming we'll never get becalmed like that boat or bemoaning another skipper's propensity for incredibly long transmissions or joking about how some controllers treat each contact like all the rest of us can't hear it, but we're fascinated with this contact with other people. Even though it isn't exactly a venue for conversation, we build conversation around it, venting our hyper-competitive natures and soothing the banality of our isolation. However crass or nonsensical are the resulting rambles on Ardea, the development of this ritual seems quite natural.
Having noted the evolution of this daily routine, I feel a connection with those whose forms of entertainment are lacking without some form of additional input. Somehow, the radio now seems like an interactive experience- the audience being as important as the broadcast; it simply wouldn't be the same without our collective banter, even if we're the only ones who hear it. It's like how my Mom always yells instructions at sports games even when she knows the players can't hear her. In like manner, we build ourselves some entertainment with what we have, and what we get is quite a bit more fun than even the most captivating episode of Pawn Stars.
Nevertheless, we're lucky to have been able to report today at 0200 Zulu:
Position: 08 deg. 20.9' N 126 deg 43.3' W
Course: 205 M (214 True)
Speed: 6 knots
Baro: 1011 mb
Wind: 16 knots NE
Swell: 2 m NE
We're sailing under the jib and the mizzen, with the main down and the main boom hauled to weather for stability. These days it's easy to see just how hopeful folks are when they wish one another fair winds and following seas.
Connor
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Passage Update
Ahoy from the sea.
Finally getting some good radio propagation- should have position updates on Shiptrak.org now (see link on blog homepage). Sorry for the delay- more on how ham radio is awesome but finicky and speciifcs about how I finally got my no-Pactor-modem rig to connect to email-radio servers some other time.
Here's us right now:
25 April 2012; 0200 Z (same as GMT, same as UTC)
Position: 11 deg. 47.3' N; 121 deg. 24.6' W
Course: 249 deg True
Speed: 6.6 knots
Wind: 18 knots NE
Swell: 2.5 m NE
Barometer: 1011 mb
Temperature: 80 F
We are all quite well. We've sort of gotten into our respective routines and sort of quietly go about our days in our tiny, constantly-moving world. We operate on Greenwhich Mean Time, so hours of day and position of sun don't really line up like we're used to. That and the absence of land for more than a week and we're sort of in a weird suspended existence. Time and space are pretty homogenous. You're either on watch or you're not. The sun is either up or it's down. At 0200Z we check in on the pacific puddle jump radio net. Those are basically the only landmarks in the day. Other than that, we eat when hungry, sleep when tired, read, do chores, and, of course, look. Lots of looking.
Fishing has been okay. Early on, we caught three yellowfin tuna (small ones- 10-15 lbs each) and a sizable Pacific crevalle jack. The latter was not so tasty, but the tunny were, as always, fantastic. Today we caught a very young mako shark, which we threw back, and later the tiniest mahi-mahi of all time. It weighed not five pounds, measured maybe 15 inches length. It was a beautiful fish, but we were a bit dissapointed to have our first dolphin be an infant. We would have thrown him back but, evidently, when I pulled hard on the rod to set the hook, it sort of set through his face. Incidentally, plenty for one good meal. Harvested some shrimp as well a few days ago- more on that when I can post pictures. Squid fly onto the deck daily. Starting to get flying fish on the deck too.
The first few days were a bit slow, but we picked up the tradewinds Saturday evening (Day 8) and have been making excellent headway since. The water and sky are beautiful out here. Still seeing some boobies and the occasional gull. Spotted first white-tailed tropic bird yesterday. Lying in our berths last night, we could hear high-pitched dolphin chatter as a group swam alongside Ardea. It was sort of surreal. We've got six days in a row now with more than 100 miles covered, and we finally had to reef, so we're hoping we'll make up lost time. With little else to do, we spend a lot of time on nav and tactics- might as well treat it like we're racing.
Ardea is in excellent order and we still have more than 80 gallons of water. We've lost one boat hook, one allen wrench, and one bowl from the galley into davy jones' locker. Should be looking to cross the equator in about ten days. Trying not to think about it too much, but I suppose we've got about 1600 nm to go.
Best wishes to all you landlubbers,
Connor
Finally getting some good radio propagation- should have position updates on Shiptrak.org now (see link on blog homepage). Sorry for the delay- more on how ham radio is awesome but finicky and speciifcs about how I finally got my no-Pactor-modem rig to connect to email-radio servers some other time.
Here's us right now:
25 April 2012; 0200 Z (same as GMT, same as UTC)
Position: 11 deg. 47.3' N; 121 deg. 24.6' W
Course: 249 deg True
Speed: 6.6 knots
Wind: 18 knots NE
Swell: 2.5 m NE
Barometer: 1011 mb
Temperature: 80 F
We are all quite well. We've sort of gotten into our respective routines and sort of quietly go about our days in our tiny, constantly-moving world. We operate on Greenwhich Mean Time, so hours of day and position of sun don't really line up like we're used to. That and the absence of land for more than a week and we're sort of in a weird suspended existence. Time and space are pretty homogenous. You're either on watch or you're not. The sun is either up or it's down. At 0200Z we check in on the pacific puddle jump radio net. Those are basically the only landmarks in the day. Other than that, we eat when hungry, sleep when tired, read, do chores, and, of course, look. Lots of looking.
Fishing has been okay. Early on, we caught three yellowfin tuna (small ones- 10-15 lbs each) and a sizable Pacific crevalle jack. The latter was not so tasty, but the tunny were, as always, fantastic. Today we caught a very young mako shark, which we threw back, and later the tiniest mahi-mahi of all time. It weighed not five pounds, measured maybe 15 inches length. It was a beautiful fish, but we were a bit dissapointed to have our first dolphin be an infant. We would have thrown him back but, evidently, when I pulled hard on the rod to set the hook, it sort of set through his face. Incidentally, plenty for one good meal. Harvested some shrimp as well a few days ago- more on that when I can post pictures. Squid fly onto the deck daily. Starting to get flying fish on the deck too.
The first few days were a bit slow, but we picked up the tradewinds Saturday evening (Day 8) and have been making excellent headway since. The water and sky are beautiful out here. Still seeing some boobies and the occasional gull. Spotted first white-tailed tropic bird yesterday. Lying in our berths last night, we could hear high-pitched dolphin chatter as a group swam alongside Ardea. It was sort of surreal. We've got six days in a row now with more than 100 miles covered, and we finally had to reef, so we're hoping we'll make up lost time. With little else to do, we spend a lot of time on nav and tactics- might as well treat it like we're racing.
Ardea is in excellent order and we still have more than 80 gallons of water. We've lost one boat hook, one allen wrench, and one bowl from the galley into davy jones' locker. Should be looking to cross the equator in about ten days. Trying not to think about it too much, but I suppose we've got about 1600 nm to go.
Best wishes to all you landlubbers,
Connor
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Position Update; Day 8
This is Connor's brother Charlie,
They called me with an update via the satellite phone with their position and they have recently picked up the trade winds and are cruising about 6.5 knots, and are "riding the bus." They are well fed on fresh fish and mutual bordem. They befriended a blue footed booby named Earl-Bob who hung out with them for two days, and apparently has defecated large amounts on the deck. They insist that if Earl-Bob returns again he will "get a good talking to."
Their coordinates are:
13" 48.2' north 117" 44.4' west
They called me with an update via the satellite phone with their position and they have recently picked up the trade winds and are cruising about 6.5 knots, and are "riding the bus." They are well fed on fresh fish and mutual bordem. They befriended a blue footed booby named Earl-Bob who hung out with them for two days, and apparently has defecated large amounts on the deck. They insist that if Earl-Bob returns again he will "get a good talking to."
Their coordinates are:
13" 48.2' north 117" 44.4' west
Friday, April 13, 2012
It's about that time.
Well, we seem to have a tendency toward tardiness. Here we are, really really close to ready to go, but still pushing back our departure day by day. We were going to leave on Tuesday, but the weather was better for Wednesday. Then on Wednesday we were finishing our last projects and it was quite busy- the weather was just as good for a Thursday push, so we put it off a day. Now, here we are on Thursday. I'm writing this at Huanacaxtle Cafe in La Cruz. We just ordered our second round of beers.
Now we will be pushing off as soon as possible, but it's hard to say whether that's Thursday 4/12 or Friday 4/13. The weather is as good as it has been this year, which is nice vindication for our slowness- we were getting some grief from friends in La Paz about our general lateness, but it turns out to have been a late year anyway, so those who left earlier have had very slow passages. Now we're looking at a fairly strong (1026 mb) high pressure system sitting near Hawaii, which is an indicator that the summer trade winds should be getting stronger to the South (the high pressure system there pulls the sub-tropical jetstream North, taking the variable pressure systems that confuse the tradewinds with it). A cold front is passing through northern Baja as well, which helps create down-flow, providing a good connection from where we are to the trades. The ITCZ is relatively narrow still and north of the equator (typically it has widened more by this time of year and moved South, but we're lucky that it has remained more March-like this year). Below are some of the NOAA weather images that we use for route planning and passage tactics; they are all obtainable on the internet at: http://weather.noaa.gov/fax/marine.shtml. We are currently using charts broadcast from the Hawaii station. All of these charts are also available on high frequency radio, which is how we get them at sea. Just in case there's any interest on how we pick weather windows.
The list of preparations has largely been semantic, but these things take time in Mexico. Especially for such prolific beer drinkers as ourselves. We've had to get temporary overseas medical evacuation insurance so that we can be admitted to French Polynesia (this is a new rule this year- we used the Diver's Alert Network, which provides the necessary coverage for the $35/year membership fee). We also decided to throw down a bit of cash to have our immigration taken care of for us in FP. This means we won't have to provide an $1800 per person repatriation bond (the bond is recoverable, but only at certain islands), our paperwork is taken care of for us when we arrive (we don't speak French, so this is a matter of convenience) and we have a permit for duty free fuel in FP. The company we're using will also take care of the paperwork for our crew change in Tahiti. But, it has meant dealing with logistical considerations over the computer, and internet connections here are finicky and slow.
 |
| Trying to get something done at the marina restaurant. It's tough with bad internet and ceviche and beers only 15 pesos each. |
We finished our final projects yesterday: fixed the lazarettes, re-wired the stern light, added a topping lift, etc. We managed to buy a liferaft, so we wrapped our dinghy up and now have an actual cabin top to enjoy. We also got a ton of provisions: a hundred or so eggs, lots of beans, flour, and other dry provisions. Plenty of vegetables. Lots of canned goods. And, of course, beer. Six cases to be exact. Five of them are on the cockpit floor... but it's a small price to pay.
 |
| Provisions. |
 |
| Definitely necessary. |
Now we will be pushing off as soon as possible, but it's hard to say whether that's Thursday 4/12 or Friday 4/13. The weather is as good as it has been this year, which is nice vindication for our slowness- we were getting some grief from friends in La Paz about our general lateness, but it turns out to have been a late year anyway, so those who left earlier have had very slow passages. Now we're looking at a fairly strong (1026 mb) high pressure system sitting near Hawaii, which is an indicator that the summer trade winds should be getting stronger to the South (the high pressure system there pulls the sub-tropical jetstream North, taking the variable pressure systems that confuse the tradewinds with it). A cold front is passing through northern Baja as well, which helps create down-flow, providing a good connection from where we are to the trades. The ITCZ is relatively narrow still and north of the equator (typically it has widened more by this time of year and moved South, but we're lucky that it has remained more March-like this year). Below are some of the NOAA weather images that we use for route planning and passage tactics; they are all obtainable on the internet at: http://weather.noaa.gov/fax/marine.shtml. We are currently using charts broadcast from the Hawaii station. All of these charts are also available on high frequency radio, which is how we get them at sea. Just in case there's any interest on how we pick weather windows.
 |
| 24 Hour Surface Pressure Forecast: Central Pacific. |
 |
| 24 Hour Wind/Wave Forecast, SE Pacific. The little flag-looking things show wind direction and speed. Each full bar they have coming off the back counts for 10 kts breeze, each half bar for 5 kts. The numbers are wave height in feet. |
 |
| 24 Hour Surface Pressure Forecast, Southeast Pacific. We are currently just southwest of the "L", a low pressure system that has come down from northern Baja. |
 |
| 48 Hour surface pressure forecast for SE Pacific. Note the cold front (line with triangles) in norther Baja, the 1028 mb high pressure system in the top left, and the northerly, broken ITCZ near the equator- all good things for Ardea. |
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| 48 hour wind/wave forecast SE Pacific. |
It takes a while to get used to these images and their interpretation, but I assure you, we are in good shape. The great circle course to Hiva Oa, Marquesas is 2722 nm. We'll end up sailing a bit more than that, since we'll route more to the West at first to clear the Baja Penninsula for more favorable wind and swell. Then, around 130 deg. W, we'll make a course perpendicular to the ITCZ to try to jump from the North Pacific trades to the South Pacific trades as quickly as possible. The South Pacific trades are still pretty weak (see above image), but they'll hopefully strengthen by the time we get there. We expect to take thirty days or so to make the crossing, though if we can manage to hit the weather well, we may come in as quick as 25 days. For some perspective on that- our best day of sailing so far (i.e., 24 hours) has been 165 nm. Our worst has been down in the realm of 60 nm.
Some way or another (i.e., through the SSB radio nets we're using or by calling my Dad on the sat phone and having him submit), we'll provide position updates to YOTREPS, so our position should be viewable on www.shiptrak.org. My HAM callsign is KJ6TNX, but I will post a link on the blog so that the callsign is automatically entered (http://shiptrak.org/?callsign=KJ6TNX).
Anyway, we're all pretty excited with a healthy dose of nerves as well. I've never been more confident in Ardea. She's held up incredibly well so far and I suspect she'll be rather indifferent to the passage at large. So, without further adieu, we bid farewell to North America. Mexico has been better than good to us and we'll miss it for sure. But exploring about Oceania sounds pretty great too.
So, to all our family and friends, we send all of our love and best wishes. We are deeply grateful for the support we've had. Know that we will take good care and stay safe and not lay it over and catch hella monsters.
Love,
Connor
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| Listo. |
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