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Days 6 to 10
Days 6 to 10: Slow days
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Day 6: Spinnaker & Boobie bird poo26 March 2003 - Yesterday was some of the best sailing that we have EVER done... perfect wind, waves, direction, speed, water color, temperature, and any other possible variable you could think of! It was awesome (potentially heightened by the fact that we had no wind the night before!). Last afternoon/night the wind dropped quite a bit and we bobbed along at a slow 1.1 knots. We were happy to wake up to another good sailing day today though. Just after sunrise, again the wind picked up just as we would have wanted it to! We are only 30nm from the "magic" 110W, a place that has been predicted to have more steady winds (by Wx guru Don from Summer Passage)! We really hope that this rumor might be true. At the moment, we have our spinnaker up and are sailing along at a nice 6.5 knots, but the wind has been so fluky, that we never hold our breath! We are still making okay time and should arrive in the Marquesas within the next few months -- just kidding moms!!! So far we are averaging 89 miles per day. Those few days without any wind really hurt our progress. But it is on the up & up now! Our fishing predicament, is going almost as smashingly as the winds had been. We have done plenty of fishing but no catching, unless you include (and we don't) the one suicidal 4"-long flying fish that landed on our deck last night.
We are both going through several books during the lulls in wind. Thankfully there were many options for book swaps in the ports before we left, from shops and from other cruisers. We were also given some awesome books (you've got to LOVE Garrison Keillor!) from our friends Michael & Sara on Pelican -- and personalized bookmarks to boot! What was it we were saying about having met awesome friends in Mexico? Here's just another of many testaments to that!
26 March @ 16:00 GMT |
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Day 7: Seriously slow passage?27 March 2003 - We would love to report that we have had nothing but 15-20 knot winds since our last update... however if we did, not only would we be grossly over-exaggerating, we would be flat out lying! We have moved west towards
From 1600-1600 GMT (the last 24 hours), we only made 73 miles. Not too bad considering our non-movement overnight due to complete and total lack of wind! It is mentally tough to have a good day of sailing and then essentially cut your expected daily distance in half by going nowhere overnight. Oh well, the seas are comfortable and all is well. We ARE enjoying ourselves... so I guess there is no rush. However, it would be really fun to have more than one consecutive day of consistent 15 knot breezes! We'll keep whistling and hope for that wind to come! :) Other than that, not much here to report. We are doing great as is the boat!
27 March @ 16:00 GMT |
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Day 8: Going nowhere slow28 March 2003 - Well, it's been another howler out here! Our speed yesterday never exceeded 3 knots. In fact, our average speed was MUCH closer to zero! The forecast is for wind to eventually fill in to this region... but it may not be until this same time next week. We are wondering what the record is for the slowest trip from Mexico to the Marquesas. We think that we may be in contention! :) Last night, as has been typical recently, we had absolutely no wind. The upside of this is that we are able to get some rest. We turned our radar alarms on again and went to bed. We woke up once in a while in the hopes of there being wind - only to realize that the "breeze" we felt inside was from the boat rocking back and forth over the swell and sending air in through our port lights. Oh well. So far today, we haven't experienced any winds over 5 knots. When it "picked up" this morning, we put up sails and have been doing our best to harness what there is of it. Since this passage-making thing looks like it might be our lifestyle for a little longer than we had planned, we are happy to report that we have really gotten used to the routine. We have some typical daily events that have defined themselves over the last week on the water. A lot of our day is centered around communications on the Ham or SSB radio : receiving weather faxes, checking in with nets, talking to friends and sending position reports or emails to those at home. (I've noted frequencies for those of you HF radio users.) Our typical schedule is as follows: (Note, we are using GMT time for all things since we are going to be going through several time zones. I've noted local [Central Standard] time in parentheses after each time - though this will change for us as we move west.)
1300-1700 (7-10AM) Angela's watch (Eric sleeps)
1700-1830 (10AM-12:30PM) Relax and read
1830 (12:30PM) Check into the Puddle Jumpers Net (8.188 USB) 1930 (1:30PM) Lunch
2000-2200 (2-4PM) Varied projects
2200 (4PM) Weather info from Don Anderson on "Summer Passage" (22.165 USB)
2230 (4:30PM) Exercise
2300 (5PM) "Cocktail Hour" 0000 (6PM) Dinner prep followed by eating together in the cockpit
0100-0400 (7-10PM) Angela's watch (Eric sleeps)
0400-0700 (10PM-1AM) Eric's watch (Angela sleeps) 0700-1000 (1-4AM) Angela's watch (Eric sleeps) 1000-1300 (4-7AM) Eric's watch (Angela sleeps) The next day -> more of the same!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!! It will surely be the highlight
Also, our birthday celebration today will let us feel like we are able to celebrate with dad a little bit even while we're far away! Very fun! All is going well with the boat and with us!
28 March @ 16:00 GMT |
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Day 9: Wind at last!29 March 2003 - We are certainly in good spirits here!!! We had wind ALL NIGHT LONG! How unbelievable! Since our first night out (when the sailing was great), we have had no other nights with wind. Last night was not very strong, maybe 10 knots from behind, but it was enough to keep us moving and was wonderfully consistent! We could not be happier!!! (As witnessed by the grammatically inappropriate number of exclamation points I have used here!!!!) Finally our daily distance is starting to approach something that would not be totally scoffed at. Since yesterday at this same time, we have moved 85 miles. If we had logged any more days at 33 miles (like yesterday), we would have had to start using sharper pencils as our positions on the chart we SO close together it was getting hard to distinguish between them! Right now we have our jib poled out and our main up at the second reef (to prevent slapping). We are moving along at around 4-5 knots with the swell from behind. The motion is very smooth. We spoke with the weather guru, Don, yesterday afternoon & he was happy to inform us that we can finally expect consistent winds. He said to Ang, "you are finally in the clover, my dear!" Very good news!!! Our produce is lasting somewhat well, though we did have a few nasty potatoes. Potatoes last a long time... but if they DO decide to go bad, you really should own a gas mask. It is not pretty. Not knowing what the smell was, I resolved to clean the head more frequently. I went forward to undertake this task and followed my nose not to the bathroom, but to the v-berth where we are keeping some of our produce. All of our onions are doing superbly as are, surprisingly, all of our tomatoes. We've got fresh cabbage, oranges, apples, limes, grapefruit, cucumbers & garlic. We have some peppers - green bell, poblano & jalapeno - but they are quickly deteriorating. We have been trying to use them in any way we can... stuffed peppers with a rice stuffing that ALSO contains chopped up peppers! Our meals are revolving around what is going to go bad next! Don't worry moms, we do have a tremendous supply of canned foods. We haven't even made a dent in our provisions. I believe that we will likely be eating some of this same food when we get to New Zealand! :)
29 March @ 16:00 GMT |
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© 2002 Eric & Angela Siegel, OurDotCom
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